


Blank Slate - A Tony Stark Mystery

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Noir
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Assumed Relationship, Big Bang Challenge, Damsels in Distress, Developing Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Getting Together, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, M/M, Memory Loss, Protective Steve Rogers, Romance, Temporary Amnesia, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-02-01 01:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12694110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: He doesn’t remember who he is or who his friends are, but he knows he’s in a Nazi prison and needs to get away. He doesn’t remember anything about Captain America either, but the man seems to be the kind of guy you trust.And apparently they share more history than meets the eye at first glance.





	Blank Slate - A Tony Stark Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> Beware of comic book violence and comic book science and comic book amnesia. XP
> 
>    
> 
> 
> Written for [Marvel Bang 2017](http://marvel-bang.livejournal.com/) and with art by the fantastic [Ireallyshouldbedrawing](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/) who as always blew me away. It was such a pleasure working with you on this and the art came out truly fantastic as always! You stubborn Steve is the best and I love that you chose the scenes you picked for illustration. *_* Thank you so much for everything. This really lifted me up after a bit of funk. :)
> 
> [Masterpost of the art is here.](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/167450537930) Please go look at her amazing art and give her some love. I mean look at it!!! ♥♥♥ Stubborn protective Steve and roughed up Tony is the true OTP.

His two guards wore their standard gray-green uniforms - _feldgrau_ , “field gray”, he thought and wondered how he knew so much about German uniforms, when he couldn’t remember anything else of substance. They marched him down along narrow corridors, steering him with unfriendly hands that were gripping his shoulders harder than necessary. When he stumbled or didn’t know where to go he was shoved forward. He could hear the prisoners upstairs call to each other, could smell the damp, unpleasant tang of old and moldy stone walls as they made their way down the stairs and not up to the other cells.

Since the beginning he hadn’t been kept with the other prisoners.

There was utter silence down here. The silence of the grave - or an old tomb that hadn't seen living breathing people in centuries.

He frowned, trying to make sense of the sudden images of stone effigies and hidden trap doors that sprang up, but he couldn’t place them or hold on to them. Like most memories that came and went he had trouble focusing on to them and crack their meaning, before they vanished like specters.

The thought of ancient tombs was so out of place here in this dreary, dark prison that he couldn’t find the connection. What was his broken mind trying to tell him? What he knew was that this was a French prison and that he'd woken in a cell here two days ago, that he was guarded and prodded and being prepared for something by the Germans who had taken over this part of France. Some medical procedure was being prepared - or they were simply keeping him in shape for more beatings or something more sinister. He remembered a tall man with a white lab coat standing in the room, while he'd been nearly unconscious from the pain of a recent session with his mostly silent captors. The lab coat had used the word _Umerziehung_ just now before he’d been ushered from the room again.

“His reeducation is progressing.”

Was it? He couldn’t really tell. There was no memory left of the man he’d been before.

But why were they even bothering? What was so important about a man who couldn't even remember his own name?

"Bisher hat alles gut geklappt," the man or doctor had said and another tall stern man in a black uniform had nodded behind him. _Everything has worked well_ , that meant. Both of them had watched him like he was an experiment and even though he had no memory of either of them from before waking up here, he had a feeling that black coat knew him very well.

They'd been satisfied with the progress they were making or the progress he was making, that much he had gathered from their body language, from the satisfied low tones of their voices, the tight but content smiles. "Blank slate," the lab coat had said, using the German expression for it: "unbeschriebenes Blatt".

_He meant me. I’m a blank slate. A canvas they want to paint on. But why? What for?_

His heart missed a beat and he stumbled, sleeping on the uneven floor as much out of exhaustion as out of sheer distraction.

One of the soldiers gripped his arm tighter.

"Keine Spielchen," the soldier warned him and _he understood_. He didn't get all the German phrases thrown at him in different dialects, but he _knew_ he understood some German, even though so far the only words he'd uttered were English and everyone who had directly addressed him had also not done it in German. And he understood this warning: _Don’t play games._ The soldier was telling him to stay in line.

They were all ready to tell him how insignificant and powerless he was and how much better it was for him to stop fighting. That was what baffled him, though.

What the hell did they even want with him if he was someone who wasn’t important? And, as he only could remember the past few days, how much had he fought back before if they needed to remind him not to try it now? Why were they leading him along the corridors like a docile lamb without even tying his hands, if they thought he was going to “play games”?

They must be sure of him; sure of his confusion. He had no information or memory left. If he got out of here, he wouldn’t even know where to go. The must be away of that and think that would be enough to keep him.

But why threaten him then? 

They could have just told him he was one of them. It wasn’t like he had any way to tell who he was?

No.

No, they weren’t sure of him at all. His memory might still be there. The process wasn’t finished yet.

Perhaps that was why they were so afraid of him despite his disorientation? They knew some of it might come back to him or had never left at all.

He was still himself - whoever that was.

The memory of the tomb came back to him then, stronger, more real, with voices of other people whispering to him to get out before it was too late, and he wondered who these voices belonged to, as the two guards ushered him forward towards his cell, and he continued to count the steps. He’d counted the steps on their way up yesterday and the day before too.

Like he knew what he was doing.

Like he had done it before.

Like he was forming a plan to escape like it was routine.

And he had formed a plan during the night. He wasn’t going to play anyone’s games. 

“Spielchen,” he said out loud like he was testing the language and pronounced the word for “little games” carefully, but still with an accent and it earned him an unkind fist to the ribs.

Games.

He didn’t need to remember his past to understand that _everyone_ was playing games and his role here was to be a pawn.

Whoever he had been before his memory had been lost, he had a feeling that he knew how games were played and how you handled yourself in dangerous situations. Because even though he had no memory, he seemed to know exactly what was going on and also that he had to at least try and get out of it.

“Right,” he muttered. “No games.” The soldier nodded with an angry frown. Perhaps the soldiers were afraid of him - of the man he was before; a man who they remembered while he himself did not.

Suddenly both of his guards looked uneasy. Yes, he was making them nervous.

It was another 34 steps to his cell and there was always only one guard down here standing watch in front of his door in the rotten bowels of the old prison, but there was nobody waiting in front of the door while the cell was empty. 

Down here they were in the old part of the prison, even though it didn’t deserve the name. It was a dungeon like the ones he knew from stories about knights and inquisition and horrible medieval torture chambers; _knew_ with a clarity of mind that was blinding in the midst of all this horribly confusion and emptiness. Whatever had happened or been done to him, he _knew_ things. They’d left him his knowledge of things, but without a frame of reference.

Stories or historical accounts. He couldn’t tell.

23 steps.

And there was no guard in front of the cell as planned.

One of the two was probably meant to stay here to guard him after pushing him back in there.

Good.

That meant there were really only the two guards to take care of.

This wouldn’t be easy in any case.

He wasn’t weak, but he was tired and hungry and out of his depth and it was still two against one odds.

But his inner voice told him there was no other way: He would not wait for any sort of reeducation to permanently take away his chance to find out who he was or had been - or why anyone thought him important enough to hide him away in a dungeon. At least he wouldn’t wait for it peacefully and without putting up a fight.

Perhaps he had no idea where to go, where to hide, but he knew that staying here was not an option.

Obviously someone here must think him valuable or dangerous or both and that he could capitalize on. He could figure out the rest when he’d escaped.

He let himself be led the last few steps and then waited for one guard to leave his side, waited for the key to be pushed into the lock and the door to be opened, the rank smell of the cell hitting them all like a promise of rot. He was done with that.

No more rotting.

Who knew how long he'd been here, really?

The guard who had his hand hard on his shoulder went down first.

He didn't know _how_ he knew it, but he had his hand on the man's gun, even before he used the other arm to knock him in the jaw, crashing the man face forward into the stone wall. The sound of face hitting stone gave him a dark sort of satisfaction. But he was already back in movement, diving for the other one, who was standing half inside the cell door.

A short struggle ensued as the German soldier tried to push him back, tried to get his own gun out before he could be overpowered. But he had him by the throat, kicked him until he stumbled backwards and then he slammed the door shut and closed it.

When a gunshot rang through the corridor, he was already turning the key in the lock, imprisoning one of his two guards. 

The first bullet missed him by inches, the second let him hiss in pain. It had grazed him.

Pain blossomed and a dark red spot formed rapidly on his dirty white shirt. And it would only be a moment, before the man got lucky and managed to shoot out the lock or hit him.

He had to run now.

The other soldier was on his knees. There was blood on his temple and he groaned. It wouldn't take long for him to come back to himself and be a problem.

And someone might hear the ruckus and provide backup.

He had to leave.

Fast.

The man from inside the cell spat: "Stark!" and did not pronounce it like the German word for “strong”. In broken English he added: "You can't escape."

Stark?

A name?

His name?

It didn't matter. There was no time to stop now.

He was bleeding.

Time was running out.

He started to take the steps as fast as he could, which was now slower than he could have hoped for. Right now the pain wasn’t too bad though. When he reached the top of the stairs he took a moment to look at how bad it was. It was bleeding, but the bullet had really only grazed him. To him - who had no idea how good his evaluation was - it looked like a minor injury. It burned and stung, but it wasn't going to be a problem as long as he could clean it up before it got infected.

How did he know that?

Had this happened before?

He tracked back to the next staircase that he'd been led down from the examination room minutes before and listened for any sound of the soldiers he'd left behind downstairs. 

There were no steps coming up. 

For the moment the two guards were still out of the game.

But the shots must have been heard.

Half expecting running footsteps from all directions coming at he, he was quietly relieved when there were only two sets of them marching down towards him from down a corridor. He dove to the side and pushed himself against the wall to hide as best he could.

The window on the staircase was his best chance to get out before someone saw him, but he needed to get there unseen.

He had one gun. But he really didn't want to draw too much attention. Everything would spiral out of control if he did and his chances already didn’t look too good.

And yet he was calm.

Two men in uniforms, one tall and one of average height, rounded the corner and he just acted, grabbing the smaller of the two around the neck and using him as human shield against his buddy. The surprised soldier kicked out, tried to get him off, struggled.

"Stark!" he gasped and tried to get his friend to come to his aid.

Stark knew he needed to move fast. He stumbled backwards towards the stairs, pulling his hostage with him, and pointed his gun over the soldier's shoulder to shoot down the other man if he made a move.

He tried to take aim and suddenly, faster than he had expected anyone to move, a fist flew towards him... and never connected with his face, but clocked his hostage right in the jaw.

The soldier crumbled and he let go of him, watching him fold into himself at his feet.

"Tony? Tony, are you all right?"

The soldier in his gray uniform stood very close and Stark froze. The man wasn't raising his fist again, but instead raised his peaked cap and threw it away. He was tall and blonde with blue eyes, just like a good German, but he had called him by name. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded...

"Tony? Mr. Stark? Are you all right?"

"Tony?" he repeated, not sure he remembered the name or found it particularly fitting. Shouldn’t your own damn name ring a bell at least?

The soldier was confusing him even more by slipping out of the field gray coat and revealing the brightest blue scales beneath. A scaled shirt. 

Like a very bright blue knight from a picture book for children.

He even had a white star on the chest like a crest.

Something about it seemed too familiar to be off-putting. He waited and watched, fascinated by the transformation taking place in front of his eyes. He'd lived in a world of dark cells, people in gray-green and black uniforms and doctors in lab coats. Seeing bright blue with the startling red of the boots and gauntlets was like he was seeing colors for the first time.

"You're bleeding," the blonde Hercules said. "I came after you when I heard War Machine returned without you..."

"War Machine?" He made a step back, but he couldn't look away from the bright blue scales of the the strange sturdy suit that was revealed now. Blue and red and white stripes... like the flag.

The American flag.

His eyes snapped up and the face was so kind, so terribly _kind_. Of course, even in his muddled state he just _knew_ that you couldn’t always trust kindness, couldn’t always trust what was on the surface. He still didn’t know how he knew any of it, but he _knew_.

The name came back to him and he had an epiphany that rooted him to the spot like he'd been struck by lightning. He had a name now. "I am Tony?"

Tony. Tony Stark. 

He stumbled backwards; he wasn’t dizzy from pain or blood loss, just from the startled relief that came with having an actual name to call himself. The stranger reached for him, tried to catch his shoulder, perhaps trying to reassure him, but he paused when he understood the question Tony had just asked of him.

"You don't know? Tony? What’s wrong?"

"I don't know anything," he said, not entirely sure he should be so truthful in a situation like this. How was he supposed to tell friend from foe? 

He didn't miss the widening of the blue eyes, the sudden worry. The man stepped closer and this time Tony did not step away, but let the stranger touch a hand to his temple and check him over, let him look at the bleeding wound and make sure that he had no other visible marks. When he found no signs of a blow to the head he looked even more worried.

“Who are you?” Tony asked.

The man searched his eyes nervously. He was waiting for a sign of recognition. "I'm a friend. I'm Cap. I'm... Captain America. You call me Cap," the blond Hercules mumbled.

"Cap," Tony repeated, trying it out, because the first impulse was to ask: "Who comes up with a name like Captain America? Is this some propaganda joke?"

"Let's get you out of here, Tony. We'll figure this out."

"Okay," he said, making a scary leap of faith in trusting the funny stranger, because right now there wasn’t much else he could do anyway. "I know you?"

"You do," Cap said. "We know each other. You'll remember, Tony. I promise you can trust me. I'm here to save you."

Even if that turned out not to be true, it was said with so much warmth that right now Tony wanted to latch onto it. Cap held out a hand and Tony, glad to finally have a name for himself, support, and a guide in this world he didn’t quite remember, took it without hesitation.

"Cap" pulled up a cowl that was the same bright blue as the rest of the uniform. It hid his face and hair, but not the eyes. Tony wasn't sure why that seemed significant and familiar. "I couldn't bring the shield," he said conversationally, as if right now that meant anything to Tony. Maybe he hoped it would stir a memory. "It would have ruined the disguise."

Tony had no idea what he meant. He just wondered again at the bright blue of the uniform and threw a last glance at the soldier who had sagged at his feet, asking himself how strong this Cap must be to take a man out so easily.

Then he was pulled along.

"Where are we going?"

"We'll steal a motorcycle," Cap said like that was a thing he did everyday.

Perhaps he did.

Tony didn't know.

He only knew he trusted him.

“All right.” He nodded. “Transportation sounds like a good idea.”

Cap smiled wanly and pulled him along.

* * *

They got away and Tony – apparently that really was his name, even though it still felt foreign – was surprised at the ease of it. His new friend knew exactly where to go and what to do to stay out of sight.

“Cap” picked a motorcycle and made Tony get on behind him. Settling himself he took a gun from his own holster and shoved it at Tony. “I never use these anyway. We'll have to get my shield.”

“Shield?” The man had mentioned it before. It seemed doubtful to Tony that he meant an _actual_ shield. What use would it be in the field?

“You'll see.”

The cryptic other did nothing to earn Tony's trust. Why then was he feeling no inclination to run. “Do I know you? Who are you?”

Cap looked back at him over his shoulder, his face hidden by the cowl. “You know me. I'm Captain America, Mr. Stark - no, Tony”

“Tony Stark,” Tony said, trying it out in hopes of finding it more familiar. “Captain America? You said that’s who you are. That isn't a name. It's... like a... like a...” He struggled to find the right word. “Like a pulp story title.”

The man smiled and even with the mask Tony could see it reach the eyes. Seeing it settled him, a slight tingling sinking in his stomach that was made of adrenaline, anxious unease and the urge to fly became trust.

“Tony Stark,” Captain America said and grinned. “You're the name right out of a pulp novel, I’m afraid. Your name _is_ the title of a pulp...” He stopped. “Never mind. You won’t remember.”

Tony wrinkled his nose and blinked. “It's not my name? Did you just make it up based on a magazine to have a name for me?”

Cap swallowed. He had probably just realized that Tony wasn't getting the joke or allusion, and he took a moment before he spoke again, his voice grave and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I forgot... You'll see. It's your real name. A good name. This wasn't a joke and this isn't a trick or manipulation. I’ll explain when we’re safe.”

It seemed wrong somehow to see Captain America fumble with words and worry. He needed to say something reassuring. “Call me Tony. I don't feel like a Mr. Stark.”

Admittedly, he wasn't sure he felt like a Tony either.

But Captain America nodded. “All right, Tony. Hold on to me.”

They drove away just as shouts rang out across the courtyard.

“Hold on,” Cap warned again and took them off the road and into the woods at top speed.

[  
By ireallyshouldbedrawing](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/167450537930)

He couldn't do much more than hold on with his arms wrapped around Captain America's midsection. Behind them he heard dogs barking and motorcycles starting.

“They won't catch us,” Captain America shouted over the noise of the motor.

Tony pressed closer, dizzy and afraid he was going to fall unconscious. His stomach turned. He couldn't remember when he’d last eaten more than a slice of stale bread, only remembered torture and imprisonment – and suddenly there were the crispy cold air, the exhilarating speed and the noises. With it came the certain feeling that he had missed all this.

But right now, he needed to get his strength up and hold on as Captain America navigated them through the woods – motorcycle jumping and jerking.

He hid his face against the shoulder blades under the strange blue uniform and tried to will the dizziness away.

[  
By ireallyshouldbedrawing](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/167450537930)

[  
By ireallyshouldbedrawing](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/167450537930)

Behind them he heard a crash and more shouting.

Then they were off, impossible to catch up with.

Captain America didn't slow down, crossed onto a different road minutes later, but only followed it for a bit before crossing into the woods on the other side. Tony tried to keep track of where they were going. It felt like an ingrained habit, but he realized he had no idea where exactly they were escaping from let alone where they might be going to, so he gave up and closed his eyes.

He held on with an iron grip for nearly an hour. By then they arrived at car parked on the side of the road.

“You all right?” Captain America asked and Tony could feel him speaking, felt the rumbling of his voice go through him, because he was leaning against his back again.

“Yeah,” he said weakly, trying to fight down the dizziness and exhaustion to focus. He felt he should sit up and let Cap get off the bike, but leaning against his back was the only thing that steadied him, so he didn’t move.

“Are you sure?” There was that lovely worry that had pulled him in. It made Tony feel like someone actually cared; like he was human and in human company.

“I can trust you, can't I? Because right now I really don't know and I know you don't _say_ that out loud, but it wouldn't really matter...”

“Always,” was the answer he got. “You can always count on me, Tony.” Cap had turned a little to look at him, and probably all he was seeing was the top of Tony’s head. 

He needed to get up. With some difficulty, he straightened himself and gave up the safety of leaning against Cap.

“Were you hurt?” Blue intense eyes raked his face. “You're pale.”

“Starved. Tired. Weak.” He listed with drawn-out pause between the words as he took stock. “Why don't I remember anything?”

Captain America's mouth set into a thin line and he got off the motorcycle and helped Tony get off the bike. “I don't know. But we'll find out. We'll fix this. I promise we will find out what they did to you.” Then quieter, he added: “You really don't remember?”

“No.”

“Anything?”

“Am I like you?” Tony asked. Of course, he had no idea what that even meant. What was “Captain America”? A man in a blue suit living a pulp novel? Rescuing weak prisoners from hidden prisons in France? Who was he? “We're in a war and the Germans wanted me for something? Why me?”

Tony hadn't climbed off the bike yet. He was still sitting on the motorcycle and watched Captain America move towards the car as if moving around in a blue flag uniform was a normal thing.

Was it?

He wanted to remember.

The man opened the trunk of the car and pulled a bag out. Then he turned to look at Tony. He looked sad. “Because you're Tony Stark.” He smiled weakly.

“That really means nothing to me.”

“It means the world to other people.” Cap looked away back down at the bag as if he was pondering their options. They had escaped for now, but how safe were they here - out in the open?

Not sure what that meant, Tony bit his lip. It sounded like it was important to this man. “Am I a general? An agent? What?”

The man smiled. “You're a hero. Now get off that thing and pick out something to wear. You look terrible and I have to get rid of that bike.” He still looked worried, but also like things were under control.

Only now did Tony realize he was wearing a dirty, sullied shirt, that the once white fabric was stained with dried, brown blotches of blood and he was probably smelling as bad as the moldy dungeon that had been his lodge. He wasn't sure he could even tell. Everything made him feel a little overwhelmed and tired - the fresh air, the smells, the sounds, the colors.

“You can wash inside.” Cap nodded towards the shack and gave him another worried glance. “Or do you need help cleaning up?”

He knew he was pale and shaky. Standing on his own two legs after the rush of their flight was nice, but his ribs ached, his head ached; _everything_ ached. “I think I'll be fine,” he lied and was surprised how easily it fell off his tongue.

“We need a doctor to look you over,” Cap mused, but then he watched him walk closer and Tony tried his best to steady himself and give off the air of someone who knew how to walk without falling over. “They did a good job on you, Tony. You don’t remember anything.” Apparently it was only now sinking in for Cap - or maybe the man had hoped that by now he’d see some recognition in Tony’s eyes. But no such luck. His memories were still locked away behind an impenetrable wall.

They stood too close together and it looked like Captain America wasn't going to leave Tony's side until he was sure he didn't need to offer support at any second. But if he wanted to stay free and figure this out, he needed to pull his own weight. “Is there a doctor we can trust?”

Cap shrugged. The cowl made him look unreal and Tony wished he would take it off again. He would have preferred to see his whole face again. _Something to remember._

“There are a few, but all too far away. I usually don’t need them.”

“I'll be fine,” Tony repeated and finally fumbled a fresh shirt from the bag. There were different items of clothing inside. But a clean shirt seemed the most pressing matter. Anyone who looked at him and his sullied shirt would know he’d been in a fight.

“I have a coat for you,” Cap said and went around the car to fetch it. It was a boring brown coat made from heavy wool.

Tony took it. His fingers were still stiff from holding on to Cap on the ride over here and the cold that had seeped into his bones during his imprisonment had become a constant companion. “I take it we're not taking the car?” He wasn't sure why that was obvious. _Hero,_ Cap had called him. But what did that mean.

“Get changed. We'll get rid of the clothes with the bike.”

“We're not taking the motorcycle either?” That came as a surprise.

“Not this one. Go change.” He bent down to take something else from the car.

Knowing that he needed to act while he could, he stepped towards the shack and managed not to stumble over his own feet. He found a place to pull cold water, filled a basin that stood there ready with soap and a mostly clean towel. He wondered who all this belonged to or if this was here for Steve. First he washed his face, then he opened his shirt and his fingers brushed the metal there. He knew it was there. Knew. Remembered vaguely, but knew, because the device there had been of interest to his jailers. He hadn't really wondered about it until now. Why? It had been too dark in his cell to really look at it and it was hard to see without a mirror. There was a small mirror here.

He picked it up and looked at the heart. What was it and how did it work? What was its purpose?

His fingers itched. He stroked along the edges and found that skin had grown around it, like it had been there forever. 

He could _see_ his heart beat faster and the dizziness returned full force. Because there was nothing else to lean on, he leaned over the small table with the basin of water and waited till it passed. 

Then he grabbed a fresh towel and cleaned the small wound. Priority was not to die of an infection. He cleaned the graze with sure hand like he’d never done anything in his life. It didn’t look bad when all the dried blood was gone. “I am one lucky bastard,” he muttered as he saw it. 

The bullet has pierced his shirt and really only grazed him. He patched it up with a towel, before his fingers went back to exploring the metal in his chest.

For minutes he stood there, small mirror in hand, and watched his own heart beat beneath a tiny pane of slightly bent glass. It should have been a horrible sight with the scars surrounding the metal, with the glass giving a distorted view of the organ beneath. But he looked at it and realized that all he was feeling was curiosity. How did it work and why was it necessary? There was a small plug to the side that must be there for a reason and there was a shiny silvery piece of metal visible under the glass.

Did it help his heart beating?

This thing... It was implanted in his chest. He couldn't remember right now how it got there or why it had been put there, but he knew he wasn't scared of it.

The skin around it had healed long ago, too.

It looked like it was part of him. That must count for something?

A knock on the door startled him, and Captain America pushed his way into the room with the words: “Are you all right? We need to...”

The tall man in his ridiculous flag outfit froze. _Stared._

As Tony realized what he was seeing, he too looked down at the mechanical device in his chest and although nothing about the device or the heart beneath changed, he could feel the fear creep into his chest. This wasn't normal. Other people didn’t walk around with this in his chest. Was he supposed to show it off like this? 

Clearly, his “friend” hadn't known about the device.

“What's that?” Captain America strode closer, carefully, like he didn't want to spook Tony. “Did... Did they...?” He held out his hand like he wanted to reach for him, touch his shoulder, touch – the heart. But he stopped, let the hand sink and looked at Tony, openly showing signs of worry.

He was either a very good actor or the genuine article.

That was why it was so easy to say: “I don't know. I don't remember. But I don't think, so… It’s part of me.”

_Meisterstück._

_Masterpiece._

_You've outdone yourself there, my boy,_ he remembered one of the scientists mumbling at him.

“I think I might have… I think I made it.”

Cap was still staring unsure. “Does it hurt?”

He pondered that for a minute, allowed himself to consciously breathe and feel it. “I feel it,” he said softly. “Like I'm used to it.”

“That... Tony, that is... How did this happen?” The hand came up again and Tony, suddenly aware of the scars and the darkness of the metal against pale skin, and reached for the fresh shirt that for the moment had been forgotten. He felt better when he shrugged it on and the metal heart was once more gone from sight.

“I'm sorry,” Captain America said in apology. “I shouldn't have asked. This must be scary for you, not knowing...”

“I don't know,” Tony said. “I don't think there is much I do know right now. I don’t feel scared, but like I’m sleepwalking through another person’s nightmare.”

Cap nodded. “I'm sorry,” he repeated and then locked gazes with Tony. “I should have come for you sooner.”

“You should have?” Why had that not even occurred to him? Nobody had come for him. Should someone have come for him? “How long was I... gone? What happened?”

_Who am I? What am I? What are you?_

He looked over at Cap.

“I'm sorry. I'll try explain everything, Tony. Everything I know at least. But right now, we need to go.”

“Can I ask one thing?”

“Sure.”

Exhaustion was gnawing on him. His nerves were frayed, but he'd made the decision to trust this man. “Why are we here? Why was I there? In the prison? What did they want with me?”

Captain America nodded. “You are Tony Stark. You are an American hero. You have been fighting an organization called Hydra since before the war. Those men they were...”

Vaguely he remembered green uniform and insignia on the black Gestapo ones. A skull with tentacles. And with that came the random thought: _A hydra should have many heads not arms._

“Hydra. They were Hydra.” Right now he couldn't find the meaning behind that revelation, but he knew there was some significance; like a bit of knowledge wanted to break free, but couldn't.

 _Blank slate,_ he thought.

“I don't know all the details, but I know they've been trying to get you for years. _You_ told me so.”

It sounded like another line right out of a novel. _They've been after you. They're coming to get you._ It sounded like something he might have read once in a crime novel. Did he read crime novels? He didn't feel like a novel reading man. But he nodded. It was enough for now. After all he'd been starving in a dungeon and gotten by without knowing until now.

Small steps back from blank slate to man.

 _Umerziehung._ Reeducation. They'd been trying to reeducate him. He mulled this over and buttoned up his shirt.

Captain America watched him. “Tony?”

“I told you that?”

“Yes, that you had brushes with them often and that they wanted you for something. That half of them wanted to kill you but that whatever the other half would do to you if they got you alive was far worse. You don't remember this either?” Cap knew the answer to that question, but Tony could tell he wasn't asking because he needed an answer but because he was trying to figure out what to do next, how to help Tony.

“I don't remember much of anything right now. I woke up in a dungeon with a headache and nobody even told me my name. Which I think means they didn’t want me to remember my name.” He hoped that meant there was a chance for everything to come back on its own if memories kept being triggered. He glanced into the mirror one more time. A pale man with dark circles under his eyes and scratches on his left cheek stared back at him like stranger. “All right, Captain America,” he said with a short nod and straightening of his shoulders. “I think you're my guide on this trip into the unknown. Lead the way, before I'm too exhausted to follow. And that’ll probably be the case in the next five minutes, so let’s do it quickly. Where do we go from here?”

Cap stared, his mouth dropping open in surprise just for a moment, and then he shook himself out of it and laughed. After days of being prodded and abused, shoved into dark, cold rooms and then hauled back into sterile labs that were so bright they hurt, it was the warmest sound imaginable. Tony lapped it up like honey, and surprised himself with how drawn he was to it. Cheer and good humor, human connection, a friendly, handsome face...

“You're still you,” Captain America said and the admiration was unexpected and equally warm. “Nobody can take that away from you. They were idiots for trying.” He clasped his hand to Tony's shoulder, squeezed; a welcome change to the only human contact he remembered at the moment.

He tried to smile. He had decided to put his trust into this person after all. It must have been wane and tired though.

Captain America stopped laughing.

Then he reached up to pull back the cowl, showing his whole face to Tony as he'd seen it that first moment. Cap’s hair was more disheveled now, and in the blue uniform he looked no less imposing than he had in the German field-gray uniform.

_Like a true Hercules. He's really handsome though. Shouldn't hide his face._

Out loud he asked: “Do people not know who's under the mask?”

“No, they don't and they shouldn't. Otherwise sneaking in here wouldn't have been possible. Thank you for trusting me, Tony. I know you have no reason to right now. This must be really confusing, not knowing the things you’re supposed to know.”

It was – and yet it wasn't. He didn't know how to explain it. Things were really simple right now, dangerously so. But he smiled. “I'll have questions later,” he said and no muscle moved in the handsome face. Captain America didn't seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that he would have to answer Tony's questions.

“I'll try to answer them,” he promised. “I can't say I'll know all the answers.”

Then Cap held out his hand. “Let me repay your trust. I'm Steve,” he said. “Steve Rogers.”

“Didn't I know that before?” Tony asked amused and shook his hand. After what they’d already gone through together the introduction seemed out of place. He felt like he was supposed to giggle and laugh like a girl who was courted at a dance.

Dance.

He vaguely thought he remembered dancing. Not all of it done with girls. Huh.

“You knew, Tony. My first name at least. You weren't supposed to. Nobody is supposed to know who is under the mask.”

That information sounded important.

“You call me Cap or Spangles, when other people are around. You called me Winghead last time we saw each other.” He indicated the small wings on either side of the cowl.

Tony laughed. That sounded annoying, but Cap didn't seem to mind. Friendly banter then? 

“We must be good friends,” he said and just for that moment something flashed through the man's pale blue eyes. Pain. Worry. Regret. Tony couldn't place it. He wished he knew enough about Steve to read him, enough to know what to say without stepping on toes.

Then Steve nodded and said: “We're in this fight together. I'm proud to know you.”

Tony’s throat went dry and he felt out of his depth again. _Why? Does it mean so much, when I don't even know if I can trust myself?_

He stumbled and Steve caught him by the shoulder. “Easy. I'm sorry. I... you must be exhausted and hungry.”

That had been such a constant state that he wasn't sure if there was another state of existence at all.

He tried to shrug.

“We'll have a better time hiding in a city. I have a safe house where we can go, Tony. Stick with me.”

“All right.” He nodded. He really didn't have much choice in the matter.

Steve put his mask back up led him out, mumbling apologies as they stumbled through the woods. “My bike is on the other side of the clearing. It isn't far.”

It seemed terribly far to Tony, but Steve held him up, allowed him to lean on his shoulder. The graze stung, but it was the overall exhaustion that was dragging him down now.

“The bike is over there,” Steve whispered. Sure enough, there was another bike and Steve picked up a big square canvas bag, held it out to Tony. “You carry this.”

“This?” He took it and watched Steve get on, expecting Tony to sit behind him again.

“It's the shield,” he explained.

Tony blinked at the bag, wondering what exactly was up with that, but slung it obediently over his own back and then held on to Steve. He had no idea what had happened to the German bike they'd taken and he asked himself how Steve had made his way from here to the prison where they'd held Tony – because surely he couldn't have walked the distance -, but then Steve started the motor and they were on their way to the next safe house.

He wished he had any idea how to help or be useful.

Holding on with a death grip, he leaned forward to rest his head against Steve's back. He just hoped they could find a place to rest soon.

* * *

By the time they arrived it was dark and Tony was dead on his feet. He was glad Steve knew his way around, because Tony would have stumbled right into the next enemy because he was too tired to think. But with his guidance they'd managed to save themselves into the open door of a building.

He couldn't even tell how far they'd walked by the time, Steve ushered him into a dark corridor and helped him up the squeaky, old stairs like he knew exactly where to tread.

They didn't light a lamp when they reached the small apartment at the top of the stairs, but Steve maneuvered him with a sure hand towards the bed and made him sit down and take off his shoes.

“Sleep,” he ordered and Tony didn't need to be told twice. “Or do you want me to look at the wound?”

He shook his head. He hadn't had a bed under him in... whatever. He didn't remember.

Right now he was exhausted enough to fall asleep in sheets that smelled of lingering dust and it was heaven compared to the mould and decay of his cell.

When he woke up, he went straight from deepest sleep to sitting upright in an unfamiliar place like someone had startled him. His hands were up like he wanted to protect himself and he was still dressed, tangled in a thin sheet. The room was flooded with light and he couldn’t remember having dreamed.

His breathing calmed a bit when his brain caught up with the memories of the escape.

The rumbling of his stomach cut through the silence.

Across the room, Captain America turned away from the window when he heard it.

He wasn't dressed in the blue uniform anymore, and looked rather normal in the plain white shirt and beige clothes. Normal, not ordinary.

“I picked up some bread and cheese and we have hot water for tea. You were fast asleep.”

Tony stared a moment, before he realized there was a small kettle already sitting on a stove nearby, quietly boiling. He blinked. After the prison, after the strange escape, all of this seemed so strange in its domestic simplicity.

He sat up slowly.

His shoulder was stiff. His leg hurt. His back gave him trouble. The graze was throbbing - not infected, just causing a bit of added discomfort.

Steve walked carefully closer.

“Slept well?”

“Better than in recent memory. Not that I have much recent memory,” he croaked and tried to sound like it was a good joke. 

“About that,” Steve said and grimaced, stopping beside the small table in the middle of the sparsely furnished room.

“Yeah?” he squinted up at him against the light that was streaming into the room from behind Steve.

“What is the earliest thing you remember?”

He tried to think about that and watched as Steve set out the bread and cheese on the table. In the light of day he realized he still had no real idea who his new friend was or if he was indeed a friend.

“I woke up in a dungeon.”

Steve grimaced.

He wasn't sure why the memory of himself standing in a tomb holding up a torch to see came back to him then. A woman's voice said: “You were right, Tony. It was here all along.”

Just like the first time he thought of this it seemed foreign and out of place.

“Was I ever...?” he started and then wasn't sure what he wanted to ask.

“What?” Steve looked up at him encouragingly. There it was out in the light of day: the determined calm that made him feel like he could trust this man.

And he did.

“It means nothing, probably, but I keep having this flash of memory of standing in a narrow corridor or dungeon and it smells of earth and like there's no fresh air, a place that hasn’t seen life in thousand of years. I keep thinking I'm standing in a tomb. Someone is with me, but I can’t remember them, just the moment... I don't know why I would remember something like that.”

For some reason Steve's smile grew lopsided and the look in his eyes impossibly _soft_.

The look alone was enough to make Tony’s broken heart constrict. _Don't say it,_ he thought, expecting him to shut him up with another: “You're Tony Stark,”, before Steve said: “Which tomb?”

“Which tomb? That's a real memory? You're joking!”

Steve shrugged and looked sheepish. “By the best of my estimation it’s real.”

The kettle shrieked and Steve pulled the kettle away from the fireplace, preparing the tea. When he was done he came over. Tony had the impulse to jump up and get out of his way.

But Steve only reached for the big canvas bag.

Tony caught a glimpse of red and a silvery-white. It stirred something. A memory?

“Is that the shield?”

Steve looked up at him surprised and nodded. Then he opened the bag wider and let him look at it.

It was a perfect round sphere of metal, colored red and silvery white and with a white star on blue in the middle.

“What's if for?”

The short laugh was both amused and sad. “Punching Nazis mostly.”

“You punch them? With a big metal plate?”

“When I can't make them punch each other.”

Tony laughed. “That's... strange. A gun seems like the weapon of choice for everyone else. I think.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Not for me. I use one when I have to, but this is my weapon of choice.” He picked up the shield and held it out for Tony.

Not sure what he was supposed to do with it, Tony stared at it. Steve nodded at him and he finally reached for it, took it with both hands. It was perfect and smooth and lighter than he expected.

“It's vibranium,” Steve explained when he saw Tony frown. “Vibranium and steel.”

“Vibranium,” Tony repeated. “Stores kinetic energy. An alloy? How was that accomplished? I spent hours, trying to... Is that why it's so light?” He hadn't noticed his own sudden babbling as his mind kicked into overdrive, unbidden, and information about isotopes, radiation levels and alloy's danced before his eyes. He _had_ worked with this metal before.

“You know all that?” Steve sounded amused.

“I...” He stopped and tried to reach for the information that obviously was hidden somewhere in his brain. The knowledge was just there and he had no real context for it. “I don't know why.”

“You were trying to do what?”

“What?”

“You said you spent hours doing something?”

He thought about that hard. In his mind he could hear the sound of steel being hammered, felt the heat of a fire nearby. His arms were tired, his breath was running out and when he looked down there was no shield, but a terrible mask.

He blinked and looked up at Steve.

“I don't know.”

“All right.” Steve grasped his shoulder, his voice back to reassuring. “You made that,” he said and pointed at the shield.

“Oh,” Tony said and let the shield sink down on the mattress. Suddenly it was like a foreign object, a memento of a life he couldn’t remember, and the only thing about it he understood were the bright colors - _America_ \- and the white star on blue in the middle that reminded him of Steve's impossibly blue chainmail uniform.

What the hell was left in his head? What had been done to him to make everything such a terrible mess?

Then Steve pulled something else from the bag and pushed it into his hands.

Paper.

A magazine.

A colorful cover.

Blue letters formed the word “Marvels” at the top and there was a man there, holding a torch. A woman was standing at his back looking shocked as a hand reached for them from the darkness. It was a cheesy illustration. 

_Tony Stark and the Tomb of Destiny_ read the red print in the corner that announced the main story of the magazine.

He looked closer at the man on the cover. There was an undeniable resemblance.

“What is this?”

“ _That_ is one of your adventures.”

“I'm a novelist?” he spat surprised. No, that couldn't be right. Why would a novelist be crazy enough to run around behind enemy lines or be held in a Gestapo dungeon? In a _dungeon_ , for crying out loud. He knew there had been the option of prison cells, but he'd been shut into the worst place they'd had. Solitary confinement had been issued for a reason and even he had been able to see that someone had expected him to try for an escape – even in his state. And they hadn't been wrong, had they? He _had_ tried for an escape, because really the only thing he had known was that he needed to get out if he wanted to salvage what was left of himself. And even without a clear memory, his brain had provided him with the knowledge he needed to put a plan into action.

And there was the device in his chest and the lost memories...

No, he was no novelist. He was something else.

 _Hero_ , Steve had called him and Tony had believed him. Had he been to quick to do so?

“Do I sell secrets? I'm not a double agent am I?” Reeducation must have meant something to someone, at least. Reeducation? Why would they use that word?

“No,” Steve said and shook his head laughing quietly. “You're an inventor and scientist. You're an explorer.”

“Explorer?”

“Yeah, you started traveling the world when you were barely 17, looking for adventure and the answers to secrets. See, you lost your parents when you were very young and got famous for your inventions...”

That sounded like Steve was reciting an advertisement, a newspaper article - a text he knew by heart. Suddenly he was talking so fast that Tony could barely follow. “...and then you met Jim and it was one of you best adventures…”

“That sounds incredible,” he said to put an end to it.

“It's incredible,” Steve laughed and opened the magazine to show him one of the illustrations that showed Tony and a dark-skinned man stalking through the jungle. “You have encountered countless mysteries.”

He stared at it, read one of two of the captions. One read: “Jim, there is no such thing as a the living dead.” Well, he _hoped_ not.

“That's make-believe,” he said and tried to wrap his head around the life he must have led.

Apparently his flabbergasted reaction amused Steve greatly, who pried the worn pulp magazine away from his fingers and made him stand. “Come on, eat something. It's not exactly a feast. Let's get some tea in you, too. I have more of these...”

He was ushered into a chair and Steve put a cup of some herbal tea into his hands and some bread and cheese in front of him with a throw away promise of getting him something different later and then he started to rummage in the bag to pull out three more worn magazines – all _Marvels_ , all _Tony Stark Adventures_. He watched Steve put them down by his elbow and tried to swallow down the terrible feeling that whatever he'd been up to before losing his memories, must have either been the goofiest con in the history of con men or such an intelligent ploy that it was absolutely beyond him in his current state.

Maybe some things were a blessing.

But then, he'd been saved by someone who ran around in American flag inspired chainmail, throwing around a colorful vibranium shield.

So what the hell did he know?

Right now?

Admittedly, not that much.

“I thought you were make-believe, too, Tony. Or at least for some time I thought you were a really smart guy who funded his adventures and treasure hunting by putting out outrageous stories about them. But it was amazing. Even then your stories were there to help people forget how hard life could be.”

Tony nibbled on his cheese and looked at the magazine covers from the corner of his eyes. There was a huge gray metal giant on it. “You make me sound really kind,” he wondered.

“From what I know of you, I'd say you are.”

He leafed through the pages halfheartedly after he'd carefully chewed some more bread and washed it down with some of the bitter tasting tea. It wasn’t much but it was the best meal he'd had since waking up in prison. And there were no rats ready to fight him over it.

“Your shoulder looks like it's giving you trouble.”

“No, no,” he said reflexively and then pondered that quick reaction. “Maybe a little. Everything aches.”

“We should get you out of here and make sure someone with medical knowledge looks at you.” There was the worry again. And more awake now, less hungry, warm and comfortable, Tony actually had time and the frame of mind to sit up and notice it: The little worry lines around Steve's eyes, the way his usually soft mouth set into a hard, unforgiving line, and his eyes changed as he frowned. This really wasn't casual worry.

Was it?

God almighty, how the hell was he supposed to know?

“What kind of... mission was I on?” he asked, because looking from Steve back to the gray thing on the cover made him dizzy and left him with the lingering feeling that more was missing than just the memory of why he was stuck in a war.

Just.

Huh.

Was that the life he led?

He picked up the _Marvels_ issue to stare at it. “Iron Man saves the day,” read the caption.

“Who's Iron Man?”

“You,” Steve said deadpan and gave him another lopsided grin.

He took that piece of random information and squinted at the cover and then back at Steve. He supposed if he was eating bread and cheese with someone code-named “Captain America” he should have seen this one coming. Or not. Nothing seemed to add up.

“Iron Man?” The graze wound was throbbing and he huffed: “I’m not exactly made of steel.”

“Yeah,” Steve said and looked hilariously apologetic, as if he had anything to be sorry about. But he looked so very earnest about it that Tony couldn’t even joke about it. “You don't remember that either, do you?”

This was getting really frustrating. Tony shook his head slowly. “Iron Man? It sounds preposterous. What kind of codename is that?” But the picture of the hulking gray very un-knightly armor with attached machine guns drew his attentions. “It would need a lot of power to even move a construct like that, let alone fight in it. That something like it could fly can't be anything but a tall tale. So what is it? An allegory for my piloting skills? I'm a pilot? Did I invent a super-armored plane?”

That sounded like something that was a little closer to reality. And he knew so much about vibranium and steel and he knew a lot about how to build a plane and now that he was focusing on this issue, he realized, he knew a lot about how weight and steel and design would make an armor like the one in the illustration a nightmare of engineering problems – but not impossible. If you could just figure out the power source…

Huh.

“Are you telling me I'm an inventor and I invented that? How the hell would you do it?”

He threw the magazine over so it landed in front of Steve, who smiled.

“First time I saw Iron Man,” the man said with a patient smile, “was in New York. Scared me silly until I realized it was really Iron Man.”

Tony had a hard time imagining it. He tried to wrap his head around the invention and the idea and the possibilities and then his head started to hurt.

He nearly fell off the chair.

“Tony!”

Pain mounted like a towering wave ready to crash and he tried to hold on to his last thought of the hulking machine, the name, his name, the idea...

When it cleared away, he found himself on his knees in front of the chair and Steve was holding him in his arms, against his strong chest, softly repeating his name. “Tony? Tony? Are you all right? Come on! Stay with me, Tony!”

“Yeah, yeah, hello, wow. Let's not ever do that again if we can help it.”

“What happened?”

“I don't know,” he said weakly and let Steve help him back in the chair and fuzz over him. The Marvel's magazine still sat on the corner of the table, but Tony didn't even dare look at it again for quite some time.

* * *

He slept.

He had no idea for how long.

The mattress moved and he opened his eyes to see Steve in his strange uniform, sitting by his side.

It was dark again and in the darkness the blue wasn't as bright. The cowl looked more sinister like this and he felt a heightened sense of danger, before he realized, that Steve wasn't making any threatening moves.

 _There's no reason to doubt him. He hasn't done anything but take care of your useless hide,_ Tony admonished himself.

“I need to meet someone,” Steve said. “You'll be on your own for a bit. Stay in, don't show your face. I've put some apples on the table and there's some of the bread and cheese left. Nobody knows you're here but me, and for now we want it to stay that way until I can get you out of here.”

“Where are you going?”

“Mission,” he said shortly. “I'm sorry. I should have told you. I... I wasn't here because of you. I deviated from the plan when I heard there was a chance to get you out. But this is my real mission.”

His head hurt with the low level ache of an oncoming fever. He felt like someone who had slept too much, but not found any rest in it. “Real mission?”

Had his mind always been so slow in processing information?

“I'm here for a reason. There's a Hydra transport coming through, and I'm going to stop it.”

“Transport?”

He took a deep breath and then said: “Don't worry about the details. I'll stop it. I know what I'm doing. We're trying to cut them off from their supplies and draw them out in the open.”

“Was I involved in that?”

Steve hesitated a moment and then nodded. “Best I can tell.”

“You don't know either?”

“I just know that Rhodes came back without you and there was a rumor of Hydra using a prison as a lab for something...”

That woke him up. “You weren't supposed to come for me!”

“No,” Steve said. “I wasn't even supposed to know what mission you were on.”

But he _had_ known. Why? He asked.

“You told me that you were after someone called Madame Hydra to settle something once and for all.”

“I told you?”

“Yes,” Steve said and sounded reassuring. “We're passing on messages through our handlers when we can. Look at the Marvels magazines.”

It took a moment to sink in. “You deviated from your mission to come for me?”

“Yes,” Steve agreed. “Now don't worry about it. I have to do this now before the window for action closes. I'll make contact with HQ after and tell them you're here. _Don't do anything rash, Tony._ Every German out there is probably out looking for you right now and in your current state you wouldn’t even see them coming.”

He still didn't know enough about his own role in this to understand why he was supposedly that important. _Inventor_. _Famous for my inventions._ It was a likely explanation. Whatever the exact details, even like this he knew, that the men who'd been holding him in that cell were not the kind of people you wanted to meet again while you had no idea what to expect from them.

“I'll stay put,” he promised and marveled at Steve’s soft smile that got half lost in the darkness.

“See that you will. I can’t keep coming after you.”

Steve nodded and got up. He still didn't look happy about the prospect of leaving him behind.

Tony sat up and watched him strap the shield to his back with the ease of practice and suddenly realized that he'd been the occupant of the sole bed in the room. There was a worn little settee in the corner and Tony put together immediately what had happened. Instead of waking him or asking him to trade sleeping places the tall man must have slept over there. That must have been uncomfortable.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Me?” Steve froze mid-preparation and studied him in the dark.

“Did you get some rest?”

Steve chuckled. “Don't worry about me, Tony. I'm fine. I don't need that much sleep. Stay safe now, please?”

He stood up to follow when he realized that Steve wasn't walking to the door, but the window.

“Close it behind me,” Steve told him and with a daring smile climbed out like this was how you left houses every day.

Tony blinked after him, leaning out of the window to see he got down all right. Captain America reached the street level without a problem and waved at him. Not sure what to make of any of that Tony waved back and then closed the window when Steve motioned for him to do so.

Standing there, half hidden by the curtain, he watched him walk away into the night.

With a pang of regret he looked at the settee and finally sat down in the darkness. Tonight he had learned a couple of new things about Steve. He cared for Tony enough to let him take the bed even though he needed the rest more. And he was strong enough to climb down the side of a building and jump down to street level from up high without it causing any visible strain.

On the small table he could still see the _Marvels_ magazines, neatly staked now and waiting for him.

He curled up on the settee instead and nervously listened for every sound outside.

Hopefully Steve would return unharmed.

* * *

Tony didn't expect to see Steve again for hours and settled himself in for a lonely day. Until the light came up, he sat in the dark trying to get his thoughts in order.

His head was clearing, but the headache remained – and so far no memories had returned to him. Try as he might he couldn't remember why he was here.

And everything that Steve had told him – fractured pieces of stories he was supposed to know – didn't exactly form a very helpful picture. He walked through the room for a bit, because he was really sick of tired of sitting around and tried to keep himself from looking out of the window. While he hoped the house wasn't being watched, he really didn't know much of anything right now.

He new he was alone in a place where he'd never been before and that at least made him feel a little better about nothing at all bringing up memories.

After a while he went through the drawers – more because he was bored than curious. Nothing here made the apartment seem very lived in.

He was surprised to find clothes – a man's and woman's – stacked neatly in in the drawers of the closest and the chest at the foot of the narrow bed. Had a couple lived here and was just not around right now? Or were these for the people who came crashing in here when they needed it? The agents and resistance fighters?

How did all of the secrecy even work?

He chose a clean pair of pants and a less crinkled shirt and then set about to clean himself up again. The wound was already scabbing over, and wasn’t giving him much trouble, but he made sure to keep it clean. His pants had suffered on their frantic getaway and he'd been sweating a lot through the night like he’d been suffering a fever. He felt unclean again and nervous about it.

In the light of day he could really take stock of all the bruises and black blue blotches that were marring his skin and he ended up looking at the metal thing in his chest for a long time again. That he knew nothing about it made him nervous.

 _This_ was the kind of thing you _needed_ to know about.

 _Poor broken boy, with a broken heart, selfishly trying to save his own life,_ a woman's voice said in what he was sure was a memory, but even when he focused he couldn't get any context for it. A male voice cried out: _Tony!_

It was just a sliver of a memory, fractured and broken and try as he might he couldn’t remember anything more.

Because there was nothing else to do he went to leaf through the magazines Steve had left behind. Steve had told him to look at them after all. They’d used them to pass on messages and there must be traces of that in the magazines. There were some earmarks in the pages and someone had underlined some words and circled some letters, left some marks at the side. Was that some code? And was that Steve's handwriting or his?

Did he know what Steve's handwriting looked like?

He pondered this and then grinned at himself. Somewhere in his memory-less brain he had imagined Steve's handwriting to be neat and tidy, because what he'd seen of the man in their few hours here, had been of a very tidy organized person. This looked scrawled and untidy.

Try as he might he couldn’t make sense of whatever messages they’d left each other in signs and markings, so he skipped pages in the first magazine, trying to make sense of the few illustrations there instead. Maybe the pictures would bring up some buried memory? But to him it looked too much like the illustrations of an incredible adventure story, like something right out of the pages of Jules Verne or Robert E. Howard. This had nothing to do with real life. If the next magazine someone brought him was “Tony Stark, Prince of Mars, and his Life on the Red Planet” he wouldn't be surprised. Then he reached the end of the magazine.

There was that chicken scratch scrawl again.

He squinted at it.

“For Captain America from his good friend Tony Stark.” He read it out loud twice.

“That's _my_ handwriting.”

He scrambled up from the chair, suddenly frantic. Not knowing things made him nervous but finding out things actually made him excited. He took apart the night stand and then the drawers of a small writing desk in the corner. There he found two white sheets of paper and a pencil.

He took both back to the table and wrote on one of the papers: “I am Tony Stark.”

It looked tidier and less ungraceful, but even he could see at a glance that this was his handwriting.

_I gave that to him? I'm full of myself, huh?_

That last bit seemed to be the least surprising revelation.

Inventor. Millionaire. Adventurer. Hero.  
He added “full of himself” to the list of things he knew about Tony Stark.

To run around letting people know how much of a hero he was – that took quite a bit of egotism. Maybe he had just gotten what he deserved when Hydra had taken his memories away? 

But then – how did he explain Steve? The man who jumped from third floor windows without it meaning anything; the man who had pulled him from his prison with ease and confidence and had kept him safe since then; the man who’d gone out there today with a shield on his back the bright colors of an American flag like he was a valiant knight on a quest, like a hero from a book.

He knew nothing about his mission or his life, he could judge him by his actions. And everything Steve had done until now had been protecting him.

And how did he explain the sentence scribbled into the magazine?

Would a kind man be friends with a self-centered egotist who boated of heroics that had no base n reality? 

He wanted to believe that Steve hadn’t done anything he’d done for him because Tony Stark had led him on.

Restless and nervous he put away the magazine and started moving around the room. The imposed ignorance did not sit well with him and now that Steve had gone out there was nobody to ask anything.

Knowledge.

He could feel he was someone who pursued knowledge. He took things apart to get to the heart of them.

Heart.

If he’d found any appropriate tools, he knew he’d be busy taking apart the thing that was covering his heart without any sort of thought to how dangerous that might be to himself. He wanted to _know_ what it was so badly. Who had built it? What had happened to him to make a device like it necessary?

Was he living on borrowed time?

He shook himself. There were no answers and if he didn’t stop going down that road he was going to drive himself crazy. Until Steve came back there would be nobody to talk to, so he needed to keep himself busy.

Because there was nothing else to do but go back to the magazines, he picked up and slowly munched on an apple and told himself to not take another before he was really hungry. He only had a few days of memories from the dungeon, but he had a feeling that it hadn't been his first time going hungry.

And why would an awesome millionaire inventor go hungry?

Adventurer.

How often did he get stuck in situations like this and why the hell didn’t he just stay home? 

Knowledge.

Solutions.

Secrets.

Was the search for adventure driving him or had he been looking for something?

He picked up the magazine again and started to read, in part, because there really wasn't anything else to do and in part because he hoped to find out more about his own motivations and goals. After the first few pages he also started to hope that any of the names would be familiar, but everything drew a blank. While he didn’t admit it to himself, he was also disappointed that there was no mention of Cap.

The plot was simple. The fictional Tony and his aids were hunting down treasure in the tomb a Mesopotamian king. Much of it seemed like a standard fare adventure story. It was well written for an adventure; it stirred no memories though until there came a scene where his aid James Rhodes told him: “You can't go in there alone, what if...?” And even when he read it Tony felt like he heard a soft baritone voice. And while it wasn't on the page it went on in his head: “I promised Jarvis to bring you home. Your heart is already drained and I’m not letting you kill yourself, because you want to be stubborn bastard.”

“No way back now. That German butcher wants the Lethe gem for some reason and I'm not letting him have it, Jim. They’ll use it to destroy more lives.”

He studied the page. None of that was mentioned anywhere. But he remember that. He thought he remembered that.

Feeling light headed he went on reading about the way they disabled the tombs elaborate traps and made their way down into the tomb that hadn't seen life in thousands of years. “Tony, there's something there,” a woman said in another emerging memory.

Pepper.

Pepper Potts.

The redhead who was accompanying them.

Pepper.

The memory of the stuffy air in the stone corridor, of the darkness lit up by torch light, came back. It was the same as before, but now there was context.

Had this really happened? Was he thinking he remembered this because he had read the story?

Sighing, frustrated, he put the magazine down and tried to chase the memory, but it moved beyond his grasp as soon as he felt it was there.

People moved around on the stairs and he listened, tense, but nobody came to his door.

He tried to pick up another magazine, but this too felt like a pointless story. Frustrated, he gave up. His nerves were frayed and he couldn't do anything about it. For a few minutes he walked back and forth in his newest self-imposed prison cell and wondered where he would go from here. He wanted to be out in the open and breathe fresh air.

But he knew it was too dangerous.

“Your heart,” the Rhodes of his memory had warned. But it had not been part of the story. So was some of this real, but not all? Would he ever piece together what was real and what wasn’t?

A small crash announced the opening of the window and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Shocked, he realized he'd reached for a gun that wasn't there. Did he usually carry a gun?

There, in the light of day, was Captain America, casually squeezing inside - and coming to his feet, threw a last look outside and signed to someone, before he put down a huge briefcase and closed the window.

“I'm back,” he told Tony with a grin, probably drawing his own conclusions from Tony's stance and expression.

“I can see that. Are you telling me that going out to sabotage an arms convoy goes this fast with you?”

“With the right plan and the inside knowledge of the resistance.”

Tony wanted to contest that, wanted to throw a Marvels book at him and say he needed to at least learn to tell his stories with more flourish, but Steve slipped out of the brown coat he'd pulled over the blue uniform and beneath it he was covered in dirt and soot and – was that blood?

“Were you hurt?”

“Scratch,” Steve said and right there in the middle of the room, he let the coat fall, carefully put down the shield, and started to unbuckle the straps and snatches that were holding the uniform together.

A white shirt appeared underneath. It was ripped in one place and Steve was bleeding around the left shoulder. It looked like more than a scratch.

Gunshot wound.

He just knew.

Not a graze - a terrible hole in Steve’s side.

“How many gunshot wounds have I seen in my life?” he asked, because he knew he needed hot water, bandages, felt no panic, only worry and the need to help with it.

 _You're not supposed to block bullets with your body, you bloody, hot headed mule of a man,_ an angry male voice berated him from the dark trenches of his muddled memory in a pronounced British accent. He had found scars on his body during the clean up. Had he been shot before?

“A few from what I hear.” Steve's voice sounded strained as he inspected the “scratch”, that Tony could see was a through and through bullet wound.

“Did you hear that or read it?”

“Both,” Steve answered. “Can you get me the bandages? There's a case under the bed that should have everything we need.”

Tony crawled under the bed to gather everything and then helped Steve to get out of the shirt so he could inspect the point where the bullet had left the body and they could clean the wound. It was bleeding profusely, but didn't look bad. Tony inspected it and then nodded. He knew it wouldn't need stitches and told Steve even before he had time to ask himself how often he had to deal with something like it.

“I heal fast,” Steve reassured him. When Tony looked up he realized his cheeks were red and only then did he notice how close he was leaning to the man's perfectly taut muscles. When he moved back he came eye to eye with his muscled chest.

“How fast?” he asked without turning his eyes away from the muscles.

“Fast. You don't remember right now...”

“You work out a lot?”

“Ehm,” Steve said and this time he was really flustered. “Yeah, sure, sure. Well, actually, no? There’s not much time to out here.”

Tony laughed. “Are you trying to give a straight answer?”

“I'm trying not to.”

“Huh, I have a feeling subterfuge works better when you don't point people at it.”

Steve smiled. “You’ll remember, Tony.”

“It's probably a sign of what kind of a person I am, that I'm happier with cleaning a gunshot wound than with sitting around without anything to do. It was driving me up the wall.”

“It sounds like you're finding out what kind of man you are, yes.”

Tony shrugged, his throat going dry when he realized how happy that idea made Steve. “You take the bed tonight,” he said firmly. It was time to be less selfish and make himself useful. This was a war and everyone had to pull their weight. “If you're going out to do stuff like this and get shot, you should at least get some rest.”

“No,” Steve said and he sounded just as stubbornly firm on the point as Tony.

So we're both stubborn. Perfect. Why didn’t that surprise him at all?

See, Tony Stark, you're figuring this out.

“Yes, you are,” he said and made sure the bandage would hold. He calculated Steve wouldn’t be moving much in the next few days.

“No,” Steve repeated.

To get a better look at his handiwork Tony took a step back, and then grinned at the stupidly handsome face with the deep frown and the terribly stubborn expression. Surely, something about this should have been familiar? Something should be coming back to him?

But nothing did.

“Are we always like this?”

Steve looked at him cautiously. “Like what?”

He motioned between them, not sure how to describe the comfortable contrariness, the sudden joy he felt over their shared mule-headedness. “What we are. Stubborn and... this.” _Caring?_ Was that what it was that struck him as remarkable?

Because he had so little to go on, he watched carefully for any signs of body language and noticed the widening of Steve's eyes and the sudden dimming of his smile. The realization that Tony didn't remember anything about “what they were” was making him sad. Tony immediately felt bad for asking.

“No,” he said quietly. “Not always. We are both used to being in charge though and… No, not _always_.”

The answer seemed to hint at some deeper meaning, but Tony really had no context, no frame of reference. And Steve seemed unwilling to elaborate. There was another riddle dropped in front of him that he couldn’t unravel on his own. Steve was in pain though and Tony’s continued ignorance was a strain for him. How would Tony feel if one of his friends had forgotten everything about him? He bit his lip and spent the next hour quietly mulling this over.

Later they argued about the bed one more time.

They ended up lying together on the narrow mattress, far too close and crowded for comfort – and yet Tony felt this was the first victory of his memory-less life.

* * *

The suitcase that Cap had brought back held its own kind of secret as Tony was to discover the next day.

“Slept well?” Steve asked and looked at him with the slightest trace of nervousness.

He wasn't blushing, was he? It didn't really fit with the image of Captain America that ha formed in Tony’s mind to see him so nervous, but there had been a couple of times already when he'd seen him flustered.

And they'd been very close that night. Very close. When Steve had finally fallen asleep, he’d pressed himself to Tony’s back and Tony, who had forgotten how warmth could feel, had fall asleep comfortably with the reminder that he was no longer alone and stuck in a cold stone prisoner, a human heartbeat close to him all through the night.

He had quite enjoyed the closeness himself. He realized how much so and felt some warmth rise in him even thinking of it, but decided on the spot that Tony Stark was no blushing man and he’d be damned if he'd look flustered about sharing some closeness with another man - another _very handsome_ man. He _had_ slept well. It had taken them a while to find a comfortable arrangement and they'd ended up plastered to each other, but Tony hadn't minded and he'd woken this morning, warm and rested like he hadn’t before that. There was nothing to be flustered about and he’d make Steve share the bed again if he decided to be stubborn about it.

Hiding his thoughts behind a blank facade of cheer, Tony watched Steve open the suitcase and lay out the technical equipment he’d brought, before he nodded and said: “Yes, I had a good night's sleep. You?”

“Uh-huh,” Steve answered and this time Tony was sure it _was_ a blush the man was trying to hide by looking very interestedly at the parts he was setting out. But then Steve turned back to him, calm and centered, like he'd never been uncomfortable at all. And that _too_ seemed significant. “Good. You do need your rest, Tony. You need to heal up.”

 _Me?_ Tony thought. _I was lucky. He’s the one collecting bullet holes._ He was still feeling the uncomfortable nights in dungeon and the mistreatment, the pangs of hunger, the unease of not knowing in his bones – but he'd gotten nothing but rest for two days and it was driving him up the wall just sitting around.

He wanted to do his part, wanted to get busy.

Hell, he wanted to get his hands on that device Steve was unpacking like there was no tomorrow. He wanted to know how it worked, wanted to see how it had been put together...

_Inventor. Engineer._

Perhaps there was something to it after all. For the moment he pried his eyes away from Steve and all his attention wandered to the device.

“So this is a new two way radio?”

“Long range, yeah,” Cap nodded. “I've been sighted in two places now and my contact with the resistance warned me not to let myself be seen again too soon. Word is Hydra is looking for me, and not only because I’m a thorn in their side.The Nazis mean business and they want you back, before you have a chance leave the country and be beyond their grasp. Tony, we have to get you out of here.”

“All right,” he said, not sure what to say. He didn't remember what he knew about Nazis who meant business and what was bleeding into his thoughts from reading pulps about his forgotten life and listening to Steve giving enthusiastic if somewhat half-baked accounts of his own heroics and Tony's adventures.

“Not all right at all, Tony. You are well know in this war. _You_ may not remember what you look like, but everyone else does. Every collaborator, every person who has something to lose, _everyone_ who recognizes you will be liability.”

He shrugged. “So, there is a war and there is fanger. Understood, Cap,” he said and brought their attention back to the device. “Two way radio?”

“The only way out of here now is to make contact with the SEO or our own people. They'll arrange a small plane as a pick up and we get you back to England. Safest way out. Trains are out of the question, there are street blocks up and down, looking for both of us. If we're lucky they'll think we've split already, but they know...” Steve motioned towards Tony's head and looked away.

“That my brain is fried?”

“That whatever they did to you might be a bit of a handicap.”

“Nicely put.” He sighed. “You talk like a man who already worked out a plan. I am the man without any sort of plan right now. Give it to me straight and as non-confusing as possible.”

Steve chuckled. “Rhodes claims you make things up as you go when you do have your memories. Don’t tell me you’re not scheming.”

“He's real? Rhodes?”

“Yes,” Steve said. “Very real. He flies the War Machine armor and I'm trying to not get on his bad side. With all the guns you put in that he could blast me into pieces before I'd even raise the shield. You’re his friend and he wants you back in one piece.”

He had heard about War Machine before, but hadn't yet made the connection to the smart Tony Stark aid from the stories. He had a feeling that in reality Rhodes had been the one to save Tony from the tomb, but the writer hadn't elaborated on that to make the protagonist seem like more of a hero. Editorial freedom or censorship? He wished he knew.

And Cap was laying out his plan, so there was no time to ask. 

“We'll contact my partner with the radio. He'll know where we are and he can arrange for someone to pick you up or he’ll come and pick you up himself.”

“Me? What about you?” And why was this the first time he heard about a partner?

“He'll pick you up or come help me. He's with a special unit right now and he'll have everything we need to get you out of the country and back to England. I have one more thing to do.”

“Another mission? I know I'm in the dark about near everything that is going on, but doesn't this mean it's not safe for you either. Didn’t you just say you were warned not to show you pretty face around this area again?”

Steve grimaced and then said very decisively: “This is important. I know where they're keeping Iron Man. Word has gone out that they’re going to take the armor back to Paris tonight on a train.”

“The armor?” What little he'd read about it so far still sounded a little incredible to him. It had seemed like a deus-ex-machina solution to the plots that had grown over the head of the human characters. An easy story-telling device to explain how they got out of trouble. Who would believe it was real? But on the other hand there was Steve who was the only thing real to him right now - and he had a weird codename, a red white and blue uniform, a shield made of vibranium - and despite being shot just yesterday he moved around the place like he wasn’t feeling the wound much at all anymore. If Tony hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t believe it. “Steve, that's science-fiction. Iron Man can't be more important than getting out of here?”

A calm settled over Steve that even trumped the worry. “You wouldn't be saying that if you were...”

“Him.”

“If you had all your memories. You _are_ you, even without them. But, Tony, you would never forgive me or yourself if I let Hydra get the armor to work or even worse reverse engineer it. You don't remember what Iron Man means to you or this war.”

“You're right I don't!” he nearly shouted. “I don't remember anything! I don't even remember you!”

But he wanted to. He concentrated, reached for any memory he might force up, tried to think of Steve and the armor and Pepper Potts and James Rhodes and the man with the British accent who berated him about his health in the glimpses of nothing much that occasionally bubbled to the surface. Now from out of the depth of all that he'd forgotten his was the voice that warned him: _Don't be foolish, Tony. You can't go through the procedure._

A barrage of images hit him, emotions accumulated, moments lived and experienced over months and years were trying to break free all at the same time. And a young, scrawny man was smiling at him: _It's good to meet you, Mr. Stark._ Iron Man – a bulking dark shape, a giant with an inhuman face - loomed over them both and Tony felt stuck as metal walls crashed down on him.

The next thing he knew he was doubled over, held in the grasp of that excruciating, stabbing pain again. Something was trying to claw its way out of his brain and it felt like it was ready to break him in the process...

In his memories his hands closed the latches on Iron Man. _You won't pry it open without destroying it first, Gia. Don’t you dare try._

 _We’ll make you!_ she hissed.

The pain became unbearable. He was falling.

Falling.

He expected to hit floor hard and braced himself for the dull pain of it.

But that never happened.

Arms closed around him.

He let go of the memories and the pain receded.

“What the hell did they do to me?” he asked and didn't even think too closely about the fact that his brow was leaning against Steve's shoulder and a hand was patting his back.

“Remembered anything?”

He could hear Steve's voice rumbling against his cheek, but right now he was too dizzy to pull away.

“I don't think so,” he said with no small amount of disdain.

This made him an even greater liability than the memory loss.

“I'm sorry for upsetting you.”

Tony pushed back to study Steve's face. “I don't know things, but none of this is your fault. At least that's my best guess, Cap. You don’t seem the evil type.” He patted Steve's shoulder and tried to steady himself.

They were on their knees in front of the long range radio and much too close to each other. When Tony tried to read Steve's expression the man pulled back a bit and cleared his throat. But he couldn't hide it: He was still worried for Tony and he had made up his mind about what was the best course of action. The way he held up his chin told the whole stubborn story.

Steve was ready to fight him on this.

“You’re still hurt! This is unreasonable!”

“I heal fast. It doesn’t bother me today.”

He couldn’t believe it. “You’re kidding. You were shot! Yesterday!”

Steve had the audacity to laugh. “I slept it off.”

“You are worse than Tony Stark is on the page,” Tony accused. 

“Tony,” Steve said, imploring him to listen now. “I know what I am doing. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know you don’t remember this right now. But I’m stronger than your average soldier and I’m fast - I _heal_ fast. This is why I I’m Captain America.”

 _Science-fiction_ , he thought. But Steve had no reason to lie to him. 

“I’ll show you,” Steve offered and pulled at his shirt to reveal the clean bandages beneath.

“No.” Tony stopped him. He had decided to trust Steve Rogers. He should trust him in this too. But there was something else Tony didn't understand. “Why do you care so much?”

“Care?”

“About Iron Man?” _About me?_

“Because you would care,” Steve said. “And you'd never forgive me if I let them take your invention and use it to destroy all you've been fighting for.”

Tony pondered that, while his hands were suddenly busy setting up the equipment. Again he couldn't explain it, but he knew exactly what to do and how to use the radio.

Some things were clear. Other things weren’t clear at all.

He looked at Steve's face, took in the earnest expression and the determined glint in the blue eyes and wondered how often anyone managed to change his mind when it had been made up. And there was something else that Tony couldn't quite place.

Friends.

They'd been good friends. Steve had said as much.

_You're a hero._

Was that adoration?

He realized they'd been holding gazes for an embarrassingly long time by now and - _that_ wasn’t done either, was it?

But they stared at each other and he couldn’t look away.

There was something that he was missing, in the easy way Steve cared about him, in the easy way he threw himself into danger for him.

And that something shone like a blinding light out of the lonely darkness of his lost memories and he still couldn’t _find_ and name it.

“Look, Tony,” Steve said when the silence and the staring had gone one for far too long. “You said you trust me. And you can. I do trust you with my life, but right now, I want you to get help. The pain, the memory loss... Someone needs to help you, and it can't be me. I’m not any help with that. But I can do this.”

Tony looked away and at the radio instead. He knew it was functional and ready to go, but he wouldn't even know how to contact anyone. Because he knew nobody but Steve, _remembered_ nobody but Steve.

But Steve wasn't finished yet. “Let me do this. It's what I do. I'll make sure that they don't get to use Iron Man against you or anyone - and my partner will get you out of here and to safety. So, trust me and let me do this.”

Determined to at least not make Steve's life harder after all he'd done for him so far, he looked up to meet his eyes again and nodded.

And then he finally saw it - and he _had_ a name for it.

Love.

Steve didn't only care – he _cared_.

His throat went dry.

“All right,” he said and his voice squeaked a bit. Something warm welled up inside his chest and a curiosity inside of him was peaked as parts of a whole new puzzle started to assemble in front of his mind's eye.

He sat back and let Steve work the machine and make contact. 

He had a feeling there was no stopping him anyway.

* * *

Steve left him with a warning to stay put until Agent 13 would come for him, but handed him a gun and ammunition just in case. He had no wise words on how Tony was supposed to know this Agent 13. “New code name,” he said apologetically. “I haven't met her yet either.”

That wasn't exactly reassuring.

Meanwhile Captain America was going to meet up with his partner and retrieve Iron Man or make sure he was of no further use to Hydra and Nazi Germany.

Tony said nothing to stop him.

Retrieving the suit was Cap's mission. It had been confirmed by the short coded messages. It was the mission Steve had chosen for himself.

Tony still thought it sounded like foolishness, but he didn't want to get in Steve's way.

Steve left most of his things behind – the Marvels magazines, the bag that usually held the shield and the suitcase with the radio. Tony lined all items up in a row on the floor and then started to look through the drawers again, trying to determine if there was anything incriminating that needed to be destroyed before he went too.

He found nothing of interest.

After picking up the last apple that waited to be eaten, he sat down on the floor between Steve's things and took a bite of it. It wasn’t particularly sweet or juicy, but who knew when he'd get the chance to eat next.

After a while of nervously listening for steps or any other signs of danger or approaching company he decided to stack everything he needed to take with him into Steve's canvass bag. It had different small pouches, but the main part was big enough to hold the shield. It would hold the radio without problem too. Before he stacked equipment in he wanted to make sure the bag was empty and all parts would be safe.

He fingered all pouches and came across a thick rectangular object that seemed to have slipped between the folds of fabric. It took him a moment to realize that Steve had pushed it there probably to conceal it.

He hesitated.

Steve would have told him if there was anything important in the bag.

He had just asked him to take it with him. “I need it for the shield” he'd explained sheepishly.

No word about secrets concealed within.

Did Steve maybe not know about it? What could it be?

He rapped his knuckles across the bump, and recognized the muffled sound; a book.

One last time he listened for steps on the stairs.

But there was nothing.

He was alone and had no idea how long he'd be here until he was picked up safely. And who knew if he was in as much danger as Steve had claimed? But then who knew if the steps coming up the wooden stairs outside would be those of friends at all?

Should he prepare himself to fight just in case?

For minutes he sat on the floor staring at the bag, undecided.

He knew Steve cared about him.

He also realized that he cared for Steve, although he had no idea if that was a new emotion or something that had been true for a long time. 

He could have asked. But Steve hadn't said anything and so Tony had kept his mouth shut too. It was hard to navigate the right and wrong of a relationship when you had no idea of your past history. What he knew for sure was, that he wanted to know – not just his own story, but _theirs_.

He finished the apple and went back to staring at the bag.

Finally, following a hunch he felt for the little book, found the cut in the lining fabric and pulled it out. In his hands was a little blue notebook.

 _Code book_ , he thought. That made sense.

Steve operated in intelligence circles and with the resistance. It seemed like the most likely explanation.

When he opened it though, what he saw were scribbled notes and sketches.

Sketches that had been made with crude pencils and sometimes ink. Some pages had gotten wet and the pictures had blurred. He leafed through quite a couple of pages until he realized that the orderly handwriting, that left dates and short notes of names and places, was Steve's.

 _Must_ be Steve's.

_He draws?_

But his breath caught in his chest when he saw a drawing of himself. It _was_ himself. He'd been captured in a sitting position, talking to someone who was not in the drawing. It was such a quiet moment, a happy, relaxed expression. Steve had observed him well to make this drawing.

He went to another page: buildings, places, soldiers. All quick sketches. He went back to the drawing of him. His face and the shirt with the suspenders was sketched out in detail, with delicate shading.

Amazed he could do nothing but stare at it for a bit – his own animated features, the eyes – alive and full of mirth. Was that what Tony Stark was like when he knew who he was?

And why would Steve sketch him?

_Because he cares._

_Loves._

His throat was dry when he went through the next pages. There were quite a few sketches of a young man who looked like he was in his late teens, tall and lithe. He couldn't tell why he felt a pang of regret until he realized that none of the sketches were as detailed as the one of him.

Damn.

Damn.

God damn it.

He wasn't being jealous of a drawn teenager.

He didn't even have a memory of a life before last week. So what claim did he have to anyone?

And then the next page fell open.

Tony again.

Asleep and curled on his side.

Peaceful and relaxed.

He stared at it.

The intimacy got to him.

There was a date scribbled beneath, but with no small amount of annoyance he realized dates too had no meaning to him right now. The year, maybe. He huffed.

Steve had drawn him after he’d fallen asleep with a jacket stuffed under his head, a source of light threw shadow, but lit his face.

It must have been out in the field somewhere. They’d made camp together.

Tony slept.

And Steve had sketched him.

Because he had guarded Tony's sleep.

Because he cared.

Damn, damn, damn. Why hadn't he said something?

Why had Steve not told him they were like that?

Everything made sense now: his deviation from the main mission to get Tony, his worry, his gentle care and worry.

Damn it.

Why had Tony not picked up on it?

Steve had tried to not pressure him, to keep his distance and be there.

The bed.

The hug.

Going back for Iron Man.

It all made sense now.

He was doing it for a man who couldn't even remember what he meant to him.

There were more. As he went through the notebook, there were more drawings of Tony Stark.

Tony smiling. Tony holding a gun. Tony standing in front of what was only vaguely sketched out to be the armor.

Tony sitting with Jim and Pepper.

Something fell out of the notebook.

A photograph.

He picked it up. It was worn around the edges and creased in the lower half and Tony knew instantly that it had been taken in New York, although you couldn't see much of the background.

In the center was a the armor, a hulking mass of steel with the terrible mask and a big jet tube on it's back that looked like it was too heavy for the rest of it, and in front of it stood two men. Tony was laughing, looking relaxed and at home in a business suit that seemed out of place against the backdrop the propped up armor, held up by chains.

The other man looked happy too. He also looked like he'd never gotten enough meals in his life. His face was gaunt.

But the smile.

The smile seemed familiar.

He stared at it.

It reminded him of Steve.

He turned the picture around. On the back there was the untidy scrawl of his own handwriting. “For Steve Rogers, my biggest fan. We're all heroes. Your friend, Tony Stark.”

Not entirely sure what to make of it he read it again. The date scribbled in the corner said: “September 1940.”

He turned it around again to examine it further.

Steve.

It was Steve.

The skinny man was Steve. Hadn’t there been a memory involving him?

But how could it be Steve?

How had he gone from being the nice guy with the gaunt face to being the well built, broad shouldered ideal of masculinity Tony had seen up close?

“This life must be a more amazing than I thought,” he said out loud.

But there were things he knew. He and Steve had known each other for about four years. Steve had come to him in New York as a fan. Now he was out here a hero in his own right, fighting for the allied forces and against Hydra. It was exactly like a fancy pulp story.

He knew even more though: Steve had come for him when he'd been in a pinch, although his mission had been a different one. He'd gotten Tony out and had hidden him here, had made sure he was safe. Steve had made sure he got rest and had time to recover and now he was trying to get him out of the country, so he could find a way to get his memories back.

He'd been caring, reassuring, but he had also given him time to recuperate, had not pushed him to remember. The only thing he'd asked from Tony was his trust.

Not friendship.

Not remembrance.

Not closeness.

He'd tried to given him space.

Tony studied the photo, the date, his own word, and went through all the facts he had.

_“Thank you for trusting me, Tony. I know you have no reason to right now. This must be really confusing.”_

_“You call me Cap. Or Spangles.”_

_“We must be good friends.”_

_“We're in this fight together. I'm proud to know you.”_

_“You can always count on me, Tony.”_

_“We should get you out of here and make sure someone looks at you.”_

_“You told me that you were after someone called Madame Hydra to settle something once and for all.”_

_“I told you?”_

_“Yes, we're passing on messages through our handlers when we can. Look at the Marvels magazines.”_

_“It sounds like you're finding out what kind of man you are.”_

_“Are we always like this?”_

_“Like what?”_

_“What we are. Stubborn and... this.”_

_“No, not always.”_

_“You said you trust me. And you can. I do trust you with my life, but right now, I want you to get help. The pain, the memory loss... Someone needs to help you, and it can't be me.”_

A knot formed in his throat as bits and pieces of conversations they'd shared over the past days came back to him and cycled in his mind, repeating over and over and over. His hands were shaking as he put down the photograph and looked at the sketch of himself sleeping.

Why had he not put this together before?

Why had Steve not said anything?

Because you were overwhelmed and confused – and he was sad. Wouldn't you be sad if your lover didn't even remember you? How could you have forgotten about him?

And even now, he had no clear memory of his life before that moment when he'd woken up. 

These bastards had taken everything.

Trying to brainwash and reeducate him.

Hydra.

He had no clear memory of them either, not beyond the people who'd poked and prodded him and the soldiers who'd had so much fun beating him up.

 _Guter Junge,_ a voice hissed at him from the depth of his forgotten memories. _Good boy. You'll win our war for us and it will be the perfect irony. Your father would be so proud._

He ground his teeth so hard that it made a terrible noise.

They'd wanted to use him, pit him against his friends, his _lover_ , had hoped to to use him as a weapon to destroy everything he'd built over the years.

Slowly – very slowly he saw the whole picture of what had happened and understood how things fit together.

Rage filled him and he balled his hands into fist until it passed and he could think clearly.

And stupid, stupid, ignorant him had let Steve go alone.

He'd let his lover go.

He'd let him walk into danger alone and without even _remembering him in time_. He slammed his fist against the wooden floor hard enough to bruise his knuckles.

Tony had no idea what man he was.

He only knew what kind of man Steve thought he was.

He felt an obligation to live up to that.

His nostrils flared as he got up.

There was one thing he already knew about himself. “I'm stubborn,” he said out loud. “I do whatever I think is right.”

In the silence of the room his voice cut through the air like a knife and it gave him even more resolve. It was his turn to act. He eyed the two way radio and considered his options. Steve had been gone for nearly two hours. He could be anywhere. He hadn’t told Steve where exactly he was going to meet his partner, hadn’t shared details of their plan. 

_Because he knew it would give you a trail to follow._

_Because he knows you._

Tony had a very vague idea of where a transport to Paris would likely have to come past and Steve could be anywhere along that way. And even if he knew, what was he supposed to do?

A soft knock on the door made him nearly jump out of his skin. 

He grabbed the gun from the floor and considered his options, then pocketed Steve's notebook.

The person out there knocked three times, then paused, then three times again, pause and twice more.

That was the sign. Steve had told him to expect it.

Still, anyone could be on the other side of the door and Tony wouldn't be able to tell.

“Tony?” a female voice called, still softly, like she was being cautious.

He carefully stepped to the door, gun in hand. He stood beside it.

“Who is there,” he asked, without opening.

“Agent 13. Tony, it’s _me_.”

Taking a deep breath and steadying himself for whatever was going to happen next he pushed open the door, standing a little to the side to see, but ready to move out of the way and pull up the gun in case of an assault.

But the moment he saw the woman he knew who it was.

Pepper Potts looked sweaty and strained and nervous, as she was supporting a young man who also looked familiar. Or actually his hair and the blue mask he was wearing looked familiar.

He was the young man from Steve's sketches.

But he did not look like a careless youth. He’d clearly been in a fight and lost.

“Help me,” Pepper demanded and together they pulled the youth inside the room, before Tony bolted the door again. The kid looked beat up and dirty. He’d escaped from a fight and not too long ago.

“We can't stay,” Pepper said, direct and without any embellishment. “Captain America, he...”

“We walked right into a trap,” the boy said angrily.

She helped him sit on one of the chairs. Tony could see he wasn't bleeding from any obvious wounds, but he had not escaped unscathed. “Who's that?”

The man looked up and tried to grin, but it came out more like an angry grimace: “Cap said they'd scrambled your brain.”

Pepper took the moment to step up and hug him. “Tony, I'm so glad you're alive. We weren't sure we would get to you in time and when Captain America checked in with us to tell us you were free, we were so relieved. Jim had started torching all Hydra bases he could find and found no trace of you.”

“Oh,” Tony said, “I guess that can't do harm. What about Cap?”

She looked at him critically, and he looked back, sure he was supposed to feel relief or excitement at seeing her, but he was looking at another stranger; to him she was the Pepper Potts he'd read about in the Tony Stark Adventures, not a trusted companion of many years.

“You really don't remember? Me? Jim?” she asked, concern lacing her words.

“Nothing,” he admitted. “I woke up in a dungeon, mind wiped clean. Bits and pieces come back, but I've yet to make sense of them.”

“Oh god.” She took a deep breath and hugged him again, tighter. “We need to get out of here. Someone will have seen us and after what just happened… They’ll be here for us soon..”

Tony asked: “ _What_ happened? What happened with Captain America?” and at the same time the young man said firmly: “I have to go after Cap. We can't leave him there.”

Tony, who reflexively had wrapped Pepper in an embrace, looked at him over his shoulder. “That is something we can agree on,” he said as calmly as possible. He would have gone after Steve anyway and there was no power in the world that would stop him now.

_I’m such an idiot. If I lose him because I was too slow with remembering him, I’ll never forgive me._

“No!” Pepper pushed away. “No, you are going with me, Tony. I took this damn agent job to get you out of here, and so god help me I will. Do you have any idea what I had to promise Fury for him to let me go? And you have no idea what you're getting into! You're no match to anyone without your memories! Do you want to get yourself killed?”

She pushed her hands into her sides and frowned at him. He realized she was steeling herself for a fight and so was he. He wasn't going to leave. Not if the worst that he'd feared had happened.

“Anyway,” the young man said. “We can't stay here. Hydra were hot on our tail. We can get a car and have the two of you near a landing patch by the woods by tonight.”

“Good,” Pepper turned to him. “Thank you, Bucky.”

“No,” Tony said firmly. “Cap went to go get the Iron Man armor. For me. Because I can’t even remember the thing. That's my responsibility. And I don't remember much – but how did the information of the transport get out in the first place? Right after I escape? That's a little too convenient. You? You're his partner? You walked into a trap that was meant for me. I'm not going to leave him behind. I owe him that much.”

Pepper paled visibly.

But Bucky smiled wanly. “Wow, Mr. Stark. Cap always said you were brave and smart.”

“It was a trap for me. They wanted me to come for the suit of armor. They weren't finished with me.”

“Yes,” the boy agreed. “But me and Cap were caught in it. He fought so I could escape. I saw him fall. They had... They had armor, Mr. Stark. Not Iron Man, but the kind that they've been using since the war started. Fast and lethal.”

“Drones,” Pepper explained to him. “Robots, based on designs of Howard Stark, your father. They're not very sophisticated and hard to control, but mass produced they can be a problem by sheer numbers.”

 _Your father would be so proud,_ he remember the woman in his memory fragment hissing at him.

“Made by my father?”

Anger and worry mingled. There was so much he didn't know or understand.

“No,” Pepper said immediately, but she looked sad. “No, don't... No, it wasn't Howard who made them. Not really. They're based on his designs. Designs he made long before the war, Tony. It was a long time ago.”

There was a deeper story there, he could tell, but he had no time for it now.

Steve had been captured. And he couldn’t allow it.

“It's my responsibility,” he repeated. “We need to get Cap out. Then you can drag me wherever you want and tell me who I used to be.”

“Of course, we'll get Cap!” the kid shouted. He was in.

Tony grinned. He still ha no idea what to do, but at least he had an ally now, even though Pepper looked like she was ready to gun both of them down if it meant she'd get them back in a car and off towards their road to safety.

“Let's go get him,” Tony said to the kid, because he knew the needed to convince Pepper to let them go.

Just now he'd discovered that Tony Stark didn't leave anyone behind. He knew that with certainty. And he was sure as hell not the kind of man who abandoned the man he loved, even if their love was some kind of delicate secret.

He had a feeling that Tony Stark didn’t much care about propriety either. 

_Go, get your man,_ he thought. _And then tell him exactly what you think of being treated as if you can't handle the truth about your relationship just because someone wiped your memories._

He hadn’t known his own feelings before he found the notebook, had forgotten about them, but he had known to trust Steve, had known from the start that he found him attractive, that he was drawn to his kindness… He _was_ in love.

Bucky straightened himself and held out a hand. He was really just a boy on the verge of becoming a man and Tony wondered how he had ended up fighting in this war, a young saboteur in a blue and red uniform doing his part for liberty and justice.

He took the offered hand and shook it, making an unspoken promise.

“Cap always said you're the bravest man he ever met,” Bucky said and nodded. “And also that you're a bit crazy.”

“Thank you,” he said and chuckled. He had nothing to throw back at him. He wanted Steve to be safe and he wanted to remember all the things Steve said about him, everything Steve knew about him.

Pepper threw up her arms in defeat and huffed. “Good god, why can't anything ever be easy and safe with you, Tony Stark? Let’s go then and get ourselves killed.”

 _That_ at least seemed familiar.

He grinned at her.

“That’s the spirit, Pepper!”

* * *

Her exasperated words rang in his ears when the three of them arrived at the train tracks and he watched Bucky hard at work with explosives.

“We can't do that, Bucky. Cap will be on that train. You said so yourself.”

“Yes,” Bucky said. “I saw him fall, before I jumped off and got away. They were still loading Iron Man then. They hadn’t started their track. They'll have Cap secured somewhere on the train to take him to Paris or back to Germany. They won't risk him getting free.”

“What if he's dead already?” He didn't even want to think it, but he had to admit to himself that it was a terrible possibility.

“Cap hasn't told you?” Bucky asked.

“Told me what?” Why was his stomach twisting into knots at the possibility of more secrets? What else was there he didn’t know? That nobody had told him yet?

Pepper explained: “Didn’t you ask yourself why he’s Captain America? Cap’'s a super soldier. Our one and only super soldier. A special process brought him to the height of physical perfection. He's strong, fast and durable. And the process that made him is lost. Hydra killed the doctor who created it and the secret died with him. Cap’s blood is the only chance to replicated it. The Nazis want that as much as we do. They won't kill him. Not right away. Not before they extracted the secret from his blood.”

“And he's stubborn like an ox. He's also a pretty good strategist,” Bucky added. “He'll be aware that they want to dissect him. He'll play for time and look for a way out.”

Another little piece of the puzzle that was the story of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark fell into place. The Steve on the photograph that now Tony was carrying around in one of his pouches, neatly tucked away in Steve's notebook sprang to mind. The photograph must have been taken before the transformation. Steve had been a average guy, scrawny even. Then he'd been changed. And now he was Captain America.

Why had Steve gone along with it? Had he wanted to come on adventures with Tony? Had Tony pushed him to it? What made someone who was so kind go to such length to fight in a war?

Had they met, because Steve was chosen to be super soldier?

Was that why Tony had written that on the back of a photograph? Something about everyone being a hero?

The only person who could answer all his questions was Steve.

And he’d only see Steve again if they got him out.

Time to forget all the unknown variables and focus.

Tony bent down to make sure the explosives were correctly laid out and nodded at Bucky. “You know your stuff.”

“Six months of sabotage training. I know how to throw a wrench into the German war machine, Mr. Stark. Your turn now, sir.”

Tony nodded, and all his thoughts were on the mission now. He had no idea how often he'd done something like this before now, but it was clear as day that this wasn’t the first time he was involved in something like this. He knew exactly what he was doing. A sense of calm familiarity settled over him.

They hid away by the side of the road and set off the explosion. The noise was so loud that Tony was sure they must have heard it back in the city. It wouldn’t be long before someone came looking, but hopefully by then this would already be over. Earth and stones and dust rained down on the in their hiding place. Then they settled down to wait. The train couldn't be far away. 

And by the time the train came running towards them fast, Tony half expected everything to end in a train wreck.

Bucky thought it was unlikely. He’d explained that the resistance was attacking train tracks regularly and with an important transport the German’s would be on alert. 

He hoped the kid was right.

 _Steve,_ he thought, suddenly agitated.

Over the noise of the train they couldn't hear it, but Bucky had been right and the guard must have seen the destroyed track and shouted a warning.. With a screeching howl the train was stopped very suddenly, sliding for hundreds of meters before it actually came to a halt.

“Iron Man will be there.” Bucky pointed to the armored car in the middle as it was pulled past them. It looked like it had been made for special security.

Tony nodded. That was his target. Get Iron Man. Figure out how to use or destroy it. Bucky would look for Steve. Cap was his mission.

It made sense, but Tony wished their roles could be reversed.

He took a deep breath. With every fiber of his being he wanted to go after Steve and make sure he was fine first, before making sure Iron Man was no longer a threat. But he had a responsibility.

_Focus, Tony._

Shouts rang out.

A man appeared outside the armored car. He didn't wear the black coat of Gestapo officers. His coat was a terribly unappealing shade of green. He’d seen a few men wearing that shade of green. Hydra. 

“Stark! I knew you'd be back! You're too stubborn to run.”

“What does he have to be so pleased about?” Pepper muttered.

“Who's that?”

“That's Arnim Zola.”

Tony couldn't make out his face, but he had heard the voice before. It was the voice that called him a “blank slate”, “a canvas to be painted on.”

“This must be all very confusing, my boy,” he called out in thick accented English. “Come on, show yourself, Stark! You can join your flag wearing friend in out compartment for special guests of Hydra.”

Flag wearing friend.

Steve.

Bucky nodded at him and Pepper. They'd talked this through before. Bucky would crawl towards the last cars of the train with a grenade that he'd use to draw the attention to the back of the train, while Tony pretended to give himself up.

Silent and nimbly for someone who had walked here with a limp, he crawled away and out of sight.

Tony had to trust that he knew what he was doing.

Over at the train soldiers were appearing from the cars.

“Find them,” Zola shouted in German. “He won't be alone. And be careful. He’s not stupid.”

“Let me take care of Tony,” a female voice said and Pepper and Tony watched a woman clad in green and back step off the platform. Her face was a terrible sight: Nothing but a jade stone mask that was cracked. It looked like a grimace frozen in time.

“Who...?”

“Oh,” Pepper whispered from beside him, “don't bother remembering her. She was never anything but bad news. Think of her as Madame Masque. That or Madame Hydra. That's what she's calling herself these days.”

The name rang a bell, but again he had no time to dwell on the fragments of memory. “What do we do about her?”

Pepper laughed. “Leave her to me. The two of us have unfinished business.”

Like Bucky she crawled away, but she in the direction of the car they'd left just out of sight, hidden behind the trees down the road. 

Soldiers were walking right towards him.

He needed to cover Pepper.

It was time.

And Tony, to his own surprise more than anyone's, felt a calm sink over him.

“Zola!” he called and slowly got up. “You're right. It's me! I want my armor back!”

He stood up, pushing himself up to his full height.

“Stark! It’s Stark! Grab him! He's who we need.”

“Careful,” the woman warned. “He's not here without a plan. Don't underestimate him.”

“Is that so?” he shouted to her and put his hands up to show he was no threat to the armed soldiers who were approaching him. “I was beginning to feel like I wasn't the kind of person to bother with plans.”

Zola laughed. It was the kind of laugh that Tony had heard in the lab. And some of that was coming back now. _You won't remember a thing and then I will make you our next Zemo – but better, more lasting and durable and without the deterioration. None of the serum nonsense. We want you to last._

“See, my dear, I told you. His memory hasn't returned,” Zola told Madame Masque.

“Iron Man?” she asked. “Are you telling me you are just giving up?” Madame Masque stood before the train and motioned for the soldiers to come for him. He held up his hands a little higher in played surrender, waiting for Bucky and Pepper to make their moves.

“I remember. I know I'm Iron Man,” he lied. “I know everything.”

“Yes?” she asked. “Then what's my name?”

He laughed. “You're kidding, sweetheart. Now’s not the time to fish for compliments.”

Of course, he had not even the slightest hint of an idea. But he wouldn't need to know or pretend much longer.

Just as the first soldiers reached him, there was an explosion in the last train car that rocked the whole train. Soldiers were thrown forward by the blast and Tony, the only one who had seen that coming, sprinted past them to dive under the armored car as it shook and groaned and threatened to fall over.

For a panicked moment he thought he wouldn’t make it, that he’d be crushed by a falling train, then he was out.

He jumped to his feet again on the other side, just quick enough to hear gunfire and the screeching of car tires as Pepper appeared on the scene, driving right through the soldiers with their little black car. Tony didn't wait. He rushed for the front of the car to force his way in. A soldier appeared on the platform between the cars and fired at him. Tony gave back in kind.

He aimed for the man’s arm and saw his rifle fall.

And now he knew, he was a good shot. A good thing to know about yourself in a situation like this.

Zola had vanished from his place outside the car, when Tony jumped up again, shooting the lock to give him admission to the inside of the armored area.

“Don't let him in there, you idiots!”

It was the voice of the green masked lady. Tony aimed and took a shot at the next soldier coming his way. Another explosion rattled the cars behind him and the train shook terribly, metal groaning and part of it slipping off the tracks threatening to pull the rest along.

Before two more men could shoot at him with machine rifles he dove into the darkness of the armored car’s interior and pushed the door closed behind him. There was nothing to bolt it with on the inside, but Tony, freezing in fright for just a second, came face to face with a steel giant.

“Fuck,” he swore.

“Tony?”

“Cap?”

Something rattled.

Chains.

Tony tired to step around the armor. Steve was hanging from a metal hook that was let into the ceiling, his wrists secured with the same chains that had been used to secure the armor. He looked unharmed, but for a visible bruise on his cheek and a torn edge on the uniform.

Tony was by his side with one step.

All the emotions that had built up over the last days and especially the last hours unloaded in a sudden burst of relief.

He grasped Steve's face between his hands and kissed him like a man who needed this like the air he breathed. 

Steve was alive.

Outside guns were fired and it sounded like utter mayhem.

But right now he could only hear the beat of his own heart. Steve froze up and went still. But then the spark jumped over and he kissed Tony back softly, just before Tony could pull away and wonder if he'd badly miscalculated.

The door was shoved open and Tony jumped away. The armor gave him cover to pull up his revolver and shoot at the soldiers, who were piling in through the door.

“Free me,” Steve demanded.

There really was no time.

But like this they were sitting ducks.

He aimed at the hook and missed twice before the chains fell and Steve was standing on his feet without dangling, but at the same time soldiers had come around the armor and Tony had to admit he was outgunned and in danger of losing this fight.

In a flurry of chains and movements, Steve jumped forward disarmed three men at once and stormed towards the door like he was unstoppable. Only now did Tony realize that he had never actually seen Captain America in action. What he'd seen until now had been just a taste.

What he saw now took his breath away.

When Steve was done, two men were unconscious, another one had been thrown out of the the car entirely and Steve was holding the door shut from the inside.

“Tony?”

He blinked. For some reason he had known what to do until this moment and was frozen in place now.

“Tony? Why are you here? You’re supposed to be safe.”

“I'm here to save you.”

Steve looked at him with wide eyes and Tony wondered why nobody had bothered to unmask the hero. He would have. He wanted to see his face now.

“No, you were supposed to stay safe!”

“You were supposed to not be captured! What were you thinking?”

He walked closer, while fists hit against the armored door from the outside and Steve pushed his feet against the floor to keep the door shut.

“You kissed me, Tony,” Steve said. “Why did you kiss me? You don't even know me...”

“Oh,” he had nothing more to say, no explanation to give. This may all have been a bad miscalculation. His heart fell.

But there was no time.

And he wanted Steve safe.

The car shook and he looked to his right in time to see a giant dent appear in the steel wall.

“Tony?”

“Yes,” he said faintly.

“That's a drone. They're like...”

“Yeah, I heard.”

Steve was still fighting to keep the door shut, but he had no idea what to do.

“Tony?”

“Yes?”

“We need to talk when this is over, all right?”

Another dent appeared and the sound alone shook the metal frame of the car.

They were running out of time.

He watched Steve use the chains to secure the door from the inside.

“I thought we were... I'm sorry. I really thought we were...”

“Tony? There is no time. Take the armor, please. We're getting company.”

The door was secured. Steve stepped towards him and he knew he had to do something. So he got busy with the armor, just as Steve reached him and caught his jaw in one gauntleted hand to brush a short but firm kiss against his lips.

“We're not. But not because I'm not interested. You're just... Right now you just don't know what you're doing, Tony. I don’t want you to rush into this not knowing.”

A metal fist crashed right through the wall.

He was still frozen, struck by lightning, because of the short brush of lips, but he needed to do something to keep Steve safe, make sure Pepper was all right, get Bucky and escape… They’d had a plan.

“Help me,” he said and Steve understood.

He helped him to open the armor, to climb inside.

How did it work?

“It needs power. Where does it get power?” he asked Steve.

And Tony, still reeling from the kiss, the adrenaline, the fear and the sudden realization that none of the puzzle pieces had fallen in the right place came face to face with Steve as Steve climbed up to help him get inside completely.

“I don’t know,” Steve said, calmly.

“Oh, I think I know,” he said, as memories flooded in.

_The smell of metal and sweat._

_“Don't overdo it. Your heart can't take more. Don't go under 30%”_

Jarvis.

Jarvis had warned him so often.

How could he have forgotten about Jarvis?

He pulled his shirt open and Steve's eyes widened under the blue cowl.

The mechanical heart was bared to their gazes and Tony pulled out one cord and then another cord from the armor’s body and all cords fit perfectly into the small sockets on his heart and the armor sprang to life around him like he had just called it to life.

He gave a last look to Steve.

Cap.

Memories.

He remembered.

From one minute to the next some things became clear, just flooded back as if they'd never been gone.

“It's fine. I know what I'm doing, Spangles.”

And he did.

He slid into place, used an armored hand to pull down the helmet, listened to all systems coming alive around him, realized that a drone was halfway through the wall and what to do about it. Not waiting to be prompted, he jumped into action.

Pushing the robot out with a kick, he followed it up with a repulsor shot.

His heart sung – the mechanical part of it, but also his organic _heart_ \- as he remembered how he'd been captured, put in a chair with a metal helmet and put through excruciating sessions of electric shock and brainwashing until all he was, all he remembered had bled away, hidden from him, leaving him an empty shell that could be filled with new memories. A blank slate for Hydra’s masterful artists.

Time for revenge.

“I'll give you blank slate,” he growled and ripped apart the car’s outer wall to get out and at the robot.

There were three of the drones and he knew exactly how to take them out. He knew how their worked, knew they were running on old technology, knew he had taken things like them out before.

He fired one shot to his left, sending Madame Masque and her soldiers running, then he pushed over the first robot, ripping off an arm when it fell, before throwing it into the other two, toppling all of them over easily.

He turned, finding Zola and Madame Masque, before he said, his voice booming much louder with the amplification of the suit: “Tony Stark is back in action, folks. And all of you should be rather afraid. Because I’m pissed off!”

The first soldiers were running.

A shield – red white and blue – flew past him taking another robotic drone in the chin. Cap jumped out of the train and caught the returning shield easily out of the air.

Like he always did.

And Tony remembered, knew that move, _loved_ that move.

“Everyone accounted for,” Pepper shouted from the car. “Let's go!”

Tony agreed. He motioned at Cap and Bucky to run to her while he covered them.

Iron Man was back in action.

The car looked smashed but functional. It would do until they were out of reach.

He activated a button he remembered now with some fondness.

Fire sprang from Iron Man’s hands and he torched whatever came into his path. The wooden panels of one train car caught fire and then the next.

Screams and shouts and German swear words were flung his way as he walked through the soldiers, unafraid and uncaring, taking their gun fire like it was nothing.

The car with his friends went past him.

Steve shouted: “Tony, come on.”

But he wasn't done.

“Let this be a lesson,” he said to Zola, who was on his knees and looked very afraid. With two well aimed repulsor blast he destroyed what was left of the second armored transport car. He had a feeling – going by the faces – that this was where they stored weapons, possible explosives. “Don't fuck with Tony Stark.”

The car with his friends had gone.

“Don't let him leave!”

“Oh, Gia, you will let me leave, darling,” he said coldly and turned on her.

“We have more drones, we have more weapons, Tony. We'll get you one day,” Zola promised. “Dead or alive.”

“Dead or alive,” he agreed.

And only when he was sure that the little black car had gone far enough to ensure their escape, did he activate the jet on his back to raise himself into the air and make sure they were all getting out of here.

Iron Man was back.

And so was Tony Stark.

* * *

They didn't leave France for Great Britain.

With Iron Man they had an easy time breaking through enemy lines to get to camp. Fury greeted Tony with an uncharacteristic show of acknowledged respect. Jim hugged him and pulled him along to see Jarvis, who sniffed and said: “What are you standing around for? Get the armor in here, you bloody idiot. Let me look you over. I’m sure you managed to ruin all my hard work.”

“It's good to be home,” he said to that and smiled.

How had he ever forgotten about the people in his life?

He let two army doctors shine lights in his eyes and take blood pressure. He patiently related twice what had happened, how Hydra had tried to brainwash him into joining their ranks and how Captain America had come to get him, valiant knight and amazing hero that he was.

Cap and Bucky were also staying on camp to get some rest and have their cuts and bruises seen to.

“He deviated from a mission to get you,” Fury said and he sounded like the cat who got the cream.

“Did that win you a bet with Phillips?” Tony guessed.

Fury laughed and pulled out a cigar for himself and one for Tony.

Everyone was pleased with the end of this adventure.

Tony himself was pleased, but the return to camp, the jumbled return of memories also kept him on edge. Some things had simply returned like they'd never been gone, others came back at the strangest times.

Jarvis was checking over his heart when it came to him: “Gia is still with them? What a vindictive viper!”

“Oh? You remember her now?” Jarvis had never really liked any of his on and off relationships, but Gialetta Nefaria had earned a special place in his disdain.

“I remember her,” he said. “I thought I remembered her before, but I'd forgotten how close we once were.”

People kept him busy, until he was ready to fall over and sleep where he fell.

Finally he pulled away and found his tent – one he shared with Jim and Jarvis – and just lay down on his cot in the corner to get some sleep. He was out like light in seconds. His dreams were filled with memories and adventures and kisses and when he woke he realized that he had never spoken to Captain America.

Steve.

Not once since their escape had they been alone together. And now, by the light of day and with his memories returning in waves, he knew they'd never been close enough to touch lips. _That_ had been him coming to the wrong conclusions. Not that Steve wasn't kissable.

It wasn't even like Tony hadn't ever before thought about it.

He had just never acted on it.

He turned to his side and tried to close his eyes again.

The canvas of the tent rustled and someone entered, cleared their throat.

“Hello,” Tony said, without opening his eyes. “I wondered when we were going to have our talk about this.”

“You know me enough to recognize me by my footsteps?” Steve asked and sounded honestly amazed.

Knowing he couldn’t put this off, Tony rolled on his back and peered at Steve through one half-opened eye and wasn't surprised to see him standing there in his full Captain America regalia, mask down. “I know you a little better now. We got stuck in close quarters for a few days after all. Very close.”

He wasn't embarrassed about the kiss, but he knew that this kind of affection could spell trouble if it got discovered by the wrong people. And he didn't want Steve to be embarrassed or uncomfortable around him. For that, he had discovered, he cared too much about this wonderful, stubborn man.

And while they weren't _like that_ , Steve had revealed how much he cared, too. He'd come for Tony. He'd taken care of him when he needed it. He'd gone back for Iron Man. He’d watched Tony close enough to draw him in detail.

That was probably not a good opening topic for their conversation. He settled on: “You were cute before you turned full on top of the food chain attractive.”

“What?”

He smiled at Steve's startled look. And he should probably be sitting up for this conversation, but right now he was tired and comfortable and perhaps seeming more vulnerable would allow him to get away with getting off his chest what he wanted to say, before Captain America fled the scene like a very fearless hero who didn’t want to deal with possible embarrassment and showing feelings.

“I said, you were sweet in 1940, too. I think it's your eyes. They're intense.”

He was granted another glimpse of flustered Cap, who shuffled from foot to foot and then asked: “You remember?”

“Yeah, I do remember. I had help putting two and two together too.” He pulled the notebook he'd yet to return from his pocket.

Steve stared at it for a long time and Tony noticed his Adam's apple moving as he swallowed. He stepped closer to take it and then said nothing, just looked at the little book. “You know?”

“That we met before you soldiered up? I gave you an autograph. It was at the war bonds show, wasn't it? 1940. I remember that day. I like meeting enthusiastic fans.”

Steve cleared his throat and the notebook vanished inside his uniform top. “Yeah, the show in New York. I'm talking about the drawings, not the photograph.”

Tony smiled and waved his hand, deliberately changing his pose to lie more enticingly on his side, like a beautiful woman posing for a painter. “I'll pose for you if you ask nicely.” He fluttered his eyelashes.

That got him a soft laugh. “You're impossible.”

“I've been called worse. Probably earned it, too.”

It wasn't exactly the flirtiest conversation he'd ever had, but perhaps that was why it worked. Steve sat down on the cot and he moved over to make room for him. “So,” Steve said. “You know we were never -” He waved his hand around in a telling gesture.

“I know.”

[  
By ireallyshouldbedrawing](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/167450537930)

“You kissed me.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, ready to wave it away and forget about it. “We don't ever have to talk about it, if that's what you want, Steve.”

Steve looked down at him. His eyes _were_ intense. “You're in your right mind now?”

“I was in my right mind before. I had no memory to go with it, but everything else worked fine.”

“You knew what you were doing?”

He shrugged. No, he'd had no idea what he was doing. He'd made up things as he went along. Because he'd found he felt compelled to save Steve, because he felt a connection with Steve, because he had assumed they were in love. But from all he remembered now, Tony Stark made things up as he went along all the time.

“What about now?”

“Now?” Tony asked and stared up at Steve who was looking funny as he sat there with the blue cowl that made a startling contrast to the sad olive green of the tent.

“Would you kiss me now?”

He laughed.

Steve's mouth set into a scowl.

Oh, that man didn't like to be made fun of. Good to know. See, he was already making new memories and discovering new things?

“Would _you_ kiss me?” he asked and bit down the scathing comment about preferring Steve without the stupid mask.

[  
By ireallyshouldbedrawing](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/167450537930)

It was the right thing to say and as much of an invitation as Steve had needed. A slight blush crept into Steve's checks and then two arms framed his head, because Steve had leaned down. He hesitated just a moment, as Tony waited with parted lips for him to close the final gap.

[  
By ireallyshouldbedrawing](https://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/167450537930)

Then they were kissing - a sweet and testing brush of the lips that went out of control pretty quickly. It was different from their first kisses, shared while all hell was breaking loose around them. Tony pulled at his shoulders when Steve tried to end the kiss, held him in place, and then it was all tongue and teeth and fire.

“God,” Steve sighed against the side of his throat, leaning heavily on Tony chest, before pulling back a bit. “I’m kissing Tony Stark.”

Tony reached up to brush back the cowl.

“People shouldn't see me,” Steve said.

“Too bad,” Tony chuckled. “Nobody should walk in on us while we're doing this anyway.”

“Damn.” It seemed Steve had only now realized where they were and that Tony was sharing this tent with other people.

Arms settled around Tony's hips and Steve buried his face against Tony’s shoulder. The pressure of his weight got uncomfortable against the mechanical heart, but Tony didn't mind. “So, perhaps, we are _like that_ after all,” Tony suggested.

Steve kissed him again and Tony tried to make more room on the cot, while Steve whispered: “No, no, we can't do this here.”

He was right. It was a bad idea. It was a _terrible_ idea.

He went with terrible ideas pretty often.

But, yeah, this was maybe not a good idea and they couldn’t do this. Not here.

“I hear Captain America does what he thinks is best,” Tony whispered in his ear and Steve, chest heaving like he'd done a hundred mile run, glared down at him with the most adoring gaze to ever contradict a glare.

“What are you suggesting...?”

“Because you see, I'm not even a soldier. _I_ do whatever the fuck I want.” He stressed the word fuck deliberately. “Ask my dear general friend. He calls me a little shit and that's when he's not annoyed at me.”

Steve blinked, hand going back to cowl to pull it back up.

“I heard.”

“I go where I want, when I want. There must be a very safe safe house? You know, where I could pose for an artist. On a bed.”

Catching on, Steve laughed; chuckled breathlessly. “We're certainly turning over a new page,” he said like this turn of events had mystified him.

Tony took his hand, inspected the red gauntlet, and squeezed Steve's fingers. He was still exhausted and some things were still puzzling him. He had questions – about how a Marvels fan had ended up the test subject for Project Rebirth, how long Steve had wanted to kiss him and not said anything, how Tony had been too blinded by the mask and the tough talk to notice the soft smiles and the nervous adoration? But those were talks they could have in the future.

Preferably in a bed.

“Thank you,” he said, “for saving me and taking care of me. I would have been lost without you.”

“Least I could do for my hero,” Steve said and squeezed his hand in return. “And it paid off. You came to save me too.”

“Yeah,” he agreed and smiled. “Always.”

Finally he sat up and Steve went along with him.

“Let's win this war, Cap. Let's win it fast. I want my own blank slate in life to do whatever I want to do with it.”

“All right,” Steve said and for a moment they sat side by side holding hands.

Then Steve got to his feet and pulled him along. “Mr. Stark,” he said, when they were outside the tent. He shook his hand, formal, slipping into a role. “I hope we can work together again in the field.”

He nodded, smiled his best Tony Stark smile. “Can't wait for it, Spangles.”

Steve laughed.

“Come on, Cap! We're up!” Bucky called across the camp. He waved at Tony before running for a motorcycle.

“Stay safe,” Steve whispered.

“Unlikely,” he deadpanned.

He watched them go.

“You two seem cozy,” Jim remarked and when Tony turned around he saw Jim and Pepper had been watching their short good-bye

“Oh?”

Pepper grinned. “Not the romance that can go into Marvels, but so much better than your last one.”

“Ha,” he said and wondered what Gia would say to that.

“Ready to go out there and stomp down Hydra once and for all?”

“Planning your next adventure already?” Pepper asked. “I don't even have all the details for this one.”

“Of course,” he said, “you know me. I remember what Tony Stark is all about and sitting around is not it.”

A new page had been turned and he really wanted to know the next chapter of this story.

Couldn’t wait to find out actually.


End file.
